Sweden. Victor Alfred Nilsson
the memorial stones on Swedish soil tell us; also true that some of the later Swedish provinces, like Bohuslæn[1] and Scania, sent out their large contingents of Vikings and sea-kings to the West, and that one of the oldest Swedish homes of culture, West Gothland, had an appropriate channel to the West, by way of the mighty Gotha River, through which without doubt many a Viking expedition was sent; yet the leaders were in a majority of cases Danish or Norwegian chieftains. For similar reasons the Viking expeditions to the East belong by right to Swedish history. In them the participants and chieftains were Swedes, to an overwhelming majority, and, from time immemorial, Swedish districts from which the expeditions were started.
To Russia the Swedes first went on marauding expeditions; but after the countries of the North had been shaped into three large monarchies, they came to Russia upon special invitation, in order to found there a realm of strong and consistent government. This becomes evident from the testimony of the Russian historian Nestor, a monk in Kief, who lived in the latter part of the eleventh century. About the founding of the Russian empire by the Swedes he has the following remarkable statements:
“In the year 6367 (after the creation of the world, which is the 859th after the birth of Christ) the Variagi (or Varangians) came across the sea, taking tribute from the Tchud and the Slavs,” etc.—“In the year 6370 (862 A.D.) they chased the Variagi back across the sea, giving them no tribute and commencing to govern themselves, but it turned out badly with legal affairs, tribe rose against tribe, causing strife, and a rebellion was started. Then they said between themselves: ‘Let us seek a prince who will govern us and reason with us justly!’ And they went across the sea to the Variagi, to the Russians, for thus were the Variagi called, just as others were called Sviar, others Nurmanni, others Anglii, and others Goths. And the Tchudi (the Slavs of Novgorod), the Slavs, the Krivitchi and the Vessi said to the Russians, ‘Our land is great and fruitful, but it lacks order and justice; come and take possession, and govern us!’ And three brothers with their followers were selected, and they took the whole of Rus with them and came. And the oldest, Rurik, took his abode in Novgorod, the second, Sineus, his in Bielo-Jesero, and the third, his in Isborsk; his name was Truvor. After two years Sineus and his brother Truvor died. Rurik then took the whole power into his hands and gave towns over to his men, giving to one Polotsk, to another Rostof, and to a third Bielo-Jesero. And into these towns the Variagi have migrated; the earlier inhabitants in Novgorod were Slavs, in Polotsk, Krivitchi, in Rostof, Meri, and in Bielo-Jesero, Vessi.”
That the Variagi were of Swedish descent, and that it was they who gave the name of Russia to the Slav countries, is proved beyond the possibility of a doubt. A most weighty argument is the large number of Swedish names in the list of Variag princes who reigned in Russia. It would not have been possible for Nestor to devise the more than one hundred leading names of Swedish origin which occur in his chronicle. Furthermore, it has been shown that there are fifteen Swedish loanwords in Russian. This is very much. Great and powerful nations have left behind a good deal less in modern languages, the Vandals three words, the Burgundians four or five, the Herulians one. Although the Swedes in Russia had no literature in their ancestral language, they have left behind more words than the majority of Teutonic tribes founding states and nations. The Old Swedish equivalents to some of the most important proper names which meet us in early Russian history are as follows: Rurik—Hrœrekr, Sineus—Signjótr, Truvor—Tryggve, Oleg—Helge, Olga—Helga, Igor—Inge, Ingvar.
For two hundred years after Rurik, all the leading men in Russian history carry Swedish names, and all the czars of Russia were the descendants of Rurik, up to the year 1598. The emperor and historian Constantine Porphyrogenitus, speaking of Russia, makes the distinction between the Slavs and the Russians proper. In his description of the cataracts of the Dniepr, he gives to each the Russian and the Slav name, and these Russian names are nearly all understood by reference to old Swedish roots. Examples are Gellandri (Gellandi)—the Noisy, Eyfórr—the Always Turbulent. Luitprand, the Italian chronicler, speaking of the Russians, says: “The Greeks call them Russians, we call them properly Northmen.” The annals of St. Bertinus tell how Emperor Theophilus recommended some Russian envoys to Louis le Débonnaire, but how he, taking them for Norman spies, threw them into prison. The first Russian Code of Laws, compiled by Iaroslaf, presents a striking analogy to the Old Swedish laws.
The Slavs must have originally borrowed the name Russian from the Finns, who, up to the present day, call the Swedes Ruotsi. The name is in Sweden connected with a part of the coast of Upland still called Roslagen. The etymology of the name is Old Swedish rodr (rudder) and roðsmenn (oarsmen). Roslagen means “associations of oarsmen.” The district is famous for its large peculiar rowboats. By the term Russians, the Slavs originally meant people from Roslagen, later Sweden in general. But when these Russians had become the founders of a new empire, south of the Baltic, it became necessary to devise a new name for the inhabitants of Sweden. This name was found in Variagi. Only the Swedes seeking employment as sworn warriors in the service of the new Russian dynasty, or in the body-guard of the Byzantine emperors, were originally thus called. But when the name of the new nation of Swedes and Slavs became Russians, the Swedes, and the Scandinavians in general, became known as Variagi. The etymology of the word has been given as the Old Swedish vár (sacramentum) and væringar (sacramentarii, soldiers bound by oath). The same name applied to Swedes, or Northmen, occurs frequently in slightly altered forms in Greek and Arabic manuscripts.
While Rurik and his brothers were building towns, which probably means the fortifying of ancient villages, two other Variagi, Askold and Dir, who were not of the family of Rurik, went down to Kief, and reigned over the Poliané. It was they who began the expeditions against Byzantium in 865. In speaking of this, Nestor calls the Bosphorus Sud, an Old Swedish word meaning a sound. The Bosphorus is also called Sud on a Swedish memorial stone over a man who was killed in a similar expedition.
Oleg, the fourth brother of Rurik, was his successor, his son Igor being yet a minor. He was an energetic man and a great administrator.
Smolensk, Lubetch and Kief were captured, and Askold and Dir put to death. Between the years 879–912, Oleg organized the Russian empire. For the sake of commerce, he tried to preserve peace with the Greeks, but when difficulties arose he called in new armies from Sweden and great expeditions started against Byzantium. But these Variagi were an unruly element, and, in order to satisfy their desire for war and booty, the Russian rulers always let a plundering expedition to the Caspian Sea follow every unsuccessful attack upon Byzantium; also when war with the Greeks was avoided through decrees of peace, expeditions to the Caspian Sea took place.
These expeditions against the Arabs, who inhabited the coasts of the Caspian Sea, were neither in any marked degree successful. Masudi is the first author among the Arabs who mentions the expeditions of the Swedes. They came down the river Volga in their ships. The Arabs describe the “Rûs” as blond and “tall as palm-trees.” The burial of a Rûs is described by Ibn Fosslan, who visited Bulgaria in 921. “The hero was burned in a ship with weapons, horses, dogs and a woman.” In 965, the Israelite, Ibrahim Ibn Jakub, made a journey to Germany. He tells that the Arabs in his day with Rûs (Russians) meant partly the Swedes of Sweden, “who often came in ships from the West to plunder,” partly the Swedes settled in Russia, “who speak the language of the Slavs, on account of admixture with them.”
It was the destiny of the Swedes in Russia to exchange their language for that of the Slavs and finally to absorb Slav customs. Such might not have been the case if they had been greater in numbers, or if their coming had been deferred to a later, Christian period, when to a strong form of government would have been added a strong Church organization. Yet their influence was greater than that of the Vikings in any other country, for the Russian empire was entirely a Northern creation.
To follow further the Rurik dynasty would lead us away from Swedish into Russian history. But let us mention that Oleg was succeeded by Rurik’s son Igor, who also was a great war-lord, and undertook the third expedition of Russians and Variagi against Byzantium. His widow was the celebrated Olga, who was converted to Christianity and afterward canonized. She reigned during the minority of her son Sviatoslaf, whose conversion she was never able to effect. Sviatoslaf’s son and grandson, Saint