Normanism and anti-Normanism are competing groups of theories about the origin of Kievan Rus' that emerged in the 18th and 19th centuries concerning the narrative of the Viking Age in Eastern Europe. At the centre of the disagreement is the origin of the Varangian Rus', a people who travelled across and settled in Eastern Europe in the 8th and 9th centuries, and are considered by most modern historians to be of Scandinavian origin who eventually assimilated with the Slavs. The Normanist theory has been firmly established as mainstream, and modern anti-Normanism is viewed as historical revisionism.
The origin of Kievan Rus' is notoriously contentious, and relates to its perceived importance for the legitimation of nation-building, imperialism, and independence movements within the East Slavic-speaking world, and for legitimating different political relationships between eastern and western European countries. The Norsemen that ventured from what is now Sweden into the waterways of Eastern Europe feature prominently in the history of the Baltic states, Scandinavia, Poland, and the Byzantine Empire.Roman Zakharii,"The Historiography of Normanist and Anti-Normanist theories on the origin of Rus': A review of modern historiography and major sources on Varangian controversy and other Scandinavian concepts of the origins of Rus' " (unpublished M.Phil. thesis, University of Oslo, 2002).Wladyslaw Duczko, Viking Rus: Studies on the Presence of Scandinavians in Eastern Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2004), pp. 3-9.Serhii Plokhy, The Origins of the Slavic Nations Premodern Identities in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 10-48.Christian Raffensperger, "The Place of Rus' in Medieval Europe", History Compass, 12/11 (2014), 853–65 (pp. 853-54).Elena Melnikova, "The 'Varangian Problem': Science in the Grip of Ideology and Politics", in Russia's Identity in International Relations: Images, Perceptions, Misperceptions, ed. by Ray Taras (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), pp. 42-52. They are particularly important in the historiography and cultural history of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, but have also featured in the history of Poland. Contention has centred around whether the development of Kievan Rus' was influenced by non-Slavic Varangians (this idea is characterised as the "Normanist theory"), or whether the people of Kievan Rus' emerged solely from autochthonous Slavic political development (known as the "anti-Normanist theory"), including some other anti-Normanist and skeptical theories stemming from the scarcity of contemporary evidence for the emergence of Kievan Rus', and the great ethnic diversity and complexity of the wide area where these Norsemen were active.Janet Martin, "The First East Slavic State", in A Companion to Russian History, ed. by Abbott Gleason (Oxford: Blackwell, 2009), pp. 34-50 (pp. 34-36).
Mainstream view: Normanism
While the term "Normans" in English usually refers to the Scandinavian-descended ruling dynasty of Normandy in France from the 10th century onwards, and their scions elsewhere in Western Europe, in the context of the Rus' people, "Normanism" is the idea that the Rus' had their origins among the Normans (i.e. among "Northmen"). The term "Normanism" was used to cover a range of opinions about the degree of influence of the Varangians in the early history of Kievan Rus. The idea that Varangians founded Rus was seen as politically unacceptable by many Russian historians.Dmitry Nikolayevich Verkhoturov, "Normanism: What's in a Name?", Valla, 1.5 (2015), 57-65, citing Клейн Л.С. Норманизм – антинорманизм: конец дискуссии. // Stratum plus. 1999. №5, Неславянское в славянском мире. С. 91-101. Nevertheless, the close connection of Rus' with Scandinavians is confirmed by archaeological evidence for extensive Scandinavian settlement in Russia and Ukraine.
Early scholarship Modern studies of the Rus' began when the German historian Gerhardt Friedrich Müller (1705–1783) was invited to work in the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1725.Serhii Plokhy, Lost Kingdom: The Quest for Empire and the Making of the Russian Nation from 1740 to the Present (London: Allen Lane, 2017). Müller presented research made by his predecessor Gottlieb-Siegfried Bayer in the papers De Varagis ("On the Varangians", 1729) and Origines russicae ("Russian origins", 1736), and on the Primary Chronicle, written in the 12th century, and covering the years 852 to 1110. At the beginning of an important speech in 1749, later published as Origines gentis et nominis Russorum ("The Origins of the People and the Name of the Russians"), Müller argued that the Rurikid dynasty descended from ethnically Scandinavian Varangians and that the term "Russia" originated from Old Norse.Serhii Plokhy, Ukraine and Russia: Representations of the Past (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), chapter 1.Elena Melnikova, "The 'Varangian Problem': Science in the Grip of Ideology and Politics', in Russia's Identity in International Relations: Images, Perceptions, Misperceptions, ed. by Ray Taras (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), pp. 42-52 (p. 43). This statement caused such uproar in his Russian audience that he was unable to finish his presentation, and appeals to the president of the academy and the Empress led to the formation of a committee to determine if his research was "harmful to the interests and glory of the Russian Empire".Pritsak, Omeljan, "The Origin of the Rus, Russian Review, vol. 36, No. 3 (July 1977), pp. 249–273 Before the committee, scathing criticism from Lomonosov, Krasheninnikov, and other Russian historians led to Müller being forced to suspend his work on the issue until Lomonosov's death. It was even thought during the 20th century that much of his research was destroyed, but recent research suggests that this is not the case: Müller managed to rework it and had it reprinted as Origines Rossicae in 1768.
Despite the negative reception in the mid-18th century, by the end of the century, Müller's views were the consensus in Russian historiography, and this remained largely the case through the 19th century and early 20th centuries.Elena Melnikova, "The 'Varangian Problem': Science in the Grip of Ideology and Politics", in Russia's Identity in International Relations: Images, Perceptions, Misperceptions, ed. by Ray Taras (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), pp. 42–52 (pp. 44–45). Russian historians who accepted this historical account included Nikolai Karamzin (1766–1826) and his disciple Mikhail Pogodin (1800–1875), who gave credit to the claims of the Primary Chronicle that the Varangians were invited by East Slavs to rule over them and bring order.
The theory was not without political implications. For some, it fitted with embracing and celebrating the multiethnic character of the Russian Empire. However, it was also consistent with the racial theory widespread at the time that Germanics (and their descendants) were naturally suited to government, whereas Slavs were not.Christian Promitzer, "Physical anthropology and ethnogenesis in Bulgaria, 1878–1944", Focaal—Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology, 58 (2010), 47–62 (pp. 49–50).Cf. Richard Mcmahon, "Anthropological Race Psychology 1820–1945: A Common European System of Ethnic Identity Narratives", Nations and Nationalism, 15 (2009), 575–596 (p. 579).Cf. Matthew H. Hammond, "Ethnicity and the Writing of Medieval Scottish History" , The Scottish Historical Review, vol. 85 (no. 219) (April 2006), 1–27, . According to Karamzin, the Norse migration formed the basis and justification for Russian autocracy (as opposed to anarchy of the pre-Rurikid period), and Pogodin used the theory to advance his view that Russia was immune to social upheavals and revolutions, because the Russian state originated from a voluntary treaty between the people of Novgorod and Varangian rulers. The German-born Moscow academician August Ludwig von Schlözer said in 1802 that the Slavs had been living like "savage beasts and birds" before the advent of the civilizing Norsemen, a view later adopted by several scholars as well as non-scholars such as Adolf Hitler in the 20th-century, who saw in Russia "a wonderful instance of the state-organizing capability of the Germans among an inferior race".
Emergence of Western scholarly consensus
During the historical debates of the 20th century, the key evidence for the mainstream view that Scandinavian migrants had an important role in the formation of Kievan Rus' emerged as the following: Notwithstanding other suggestions, the name Rus can readily be interpreted as originating in Old Norse.Stefan Brink, "Who were the Vikings?", in The Viking World , ed. by Stefan Brink and Neil Price (Abingdon: Routledge, 2008), pp. 4-10 (pp. 6-7)."Russ, adj. and n." OED Online, Oxford University Press, June 2018, www.oed.com/view/Entry/169069. Accessed 12 January 2021. The personal names of the first few Rus' leaders are etymologically Old Norse, from Rurik (from Old Norse "Hrærekr") down to Olga of Kiev (from Old Norse "Helga"). Starting with Olga's son Sviatoslav I of Kiev onwards, Slavic names take over.Omeljan Pritsak, "Rus'", in Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia , ed. by Phillip Pulsiano (New York: Garland, 1993), pp. 555-56. The list of cataracts on the Dnieper listed by Constantine VII in his De Administrando Imperio as belonging to the language of the Rhos can most readily be etymologised as Old Norse.H. R. Ellis Davidson, The Viking Road to Byzantium (London: Allen & Unwin, 1976), p. 83. Runic inscriptions from towns and settlements indicate Scandinavian presence.Klaus Düwel and Yuriy Kuzmenko, "Runic Inscriptions in Eastern Europe — An Overview" in Studia Historyczne. R. LVI, 2013, Z. 3 (223) The Annals of St. Bertin account of the Rhos for 839 has them identify themselves as sueoni (Swedes).Duczko 2004, p. 10Jonathan Shepard, "The Viking Rus and Byzantium", in The Viking World , ed. by Stefan Brink and Neil Price (Abingdon: Routledge, 2008), pp. 496-516 (p. 497). 13th-century Icelandic historiography portrays close connections between the 11th-century rulers of Rus' and Scandinavian dynasties in England and Norway.
In the 21st century, analyses of the rapidly growing range of archaeological evidence further noted that high-status 9th- to 10th-century burials of both men and women in the vicinity of the Upper Volga exhibit material culture largely consistent with that of Scandinavia (though this is less the case away from the river, or further downstream). This has been seen as further demonstrating the Scandinavian character of elites in Old Rus'.Wladyslaw Duczko, Viking Rus: Studies on the Presence of Scandinavians in Eastern Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2004).Jonathan Shepherd, "Review Article: Back in Old Rus and the USSR: Archaeology, History and Politics", English Historical Review, vol. 131 (no. 549) (2016), 384–405 .