Varangians

(late Greek, Bárangoi, from old Scandinavian, vaeringjar: Norman warriors who served the Byzantine emperors) in Russian sources, the Varangians are first mentioned in the legend of the “calling of the Varangians”—recorded in the Primary Chronicle—with which the chronicle began the history of the Russian land. This legend served as the starting point for the creation of the antiscientific Normanist theory of the origin of the Russian state, which appeared in the 18th century and has been discarded because of its flimsiness. In Rus’ during the ninth through 11th centuries, there were quite a few Varangian warrior-bodyguards serving Russian princes and Varangian merchants involved in trade on the route “from the Varangians to the Greeks.” On a number of occasions, the Kievan princes Vladimir Sviatoslavich and Iaroslav the Wise invited hired detachments of Varangians from Scandinavia and used them in internecine wars and wars against neighboring countries and peoples. Failing to play any substantial role in Russian society, the Varnagian warriors and merchants were rapidly slavicized. During the 12th and 13th centuries, the word “Varangian” was also used in Russian sources to mean “Catholic.” In most Russian written monuments, “Varangians” as a general term for all Scandinavians was supplanted as of the second half of the 12th century by concrete names for different Scandinavian peoples— Svei (Swedes), Murmany (Norwegians)—and by the term Nemtsy, which was general for all western peoples. Up to the 18th century, the Baltic Sea was called the Varangian Sea, after the Varangians.