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Full online course by Alexey Tolochko "The Beginnings of Rus" on the Otium.Academy website: https://otium.academy/courses/tolochk... Lecture 1 Part 2: "Non-chronicle sources of the history of Kievan Rus" There is another way to write the history of early Rus, without relying on the legendary stories of the chronicle. Documentary sources can be the Byzantine-Russian treaties included in the chronicle. In the middle of the 10th century, the Byzantine Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus compiled a treatise "On the ceremonies of the Byzantine court", which mentions the visit of the Kyiv princess Olga to Constantinople. From the text, we learn the details of the receptions and the composition of the embassy. Constantine Porphyrogenitus compiled another treatise - "On the governance of the empire", where he outlined for his son the policy of "containing" the barbarians surrounding the state, including the "Rus". According to the text, the “Rus” (Dews) travel around the lands of their Slavic subjects in winter and collect tribute, and in summer they go to Constantinople, where they sell their goods. A valuable mention of the Rus is contained in the “Note” of an Arab author, a member of the Baghdad Caliph’s embassy to Volga Bulgaria, Ahmed ibn Fadlan. On the Volga, he saw Rus merchants and described the appearance, rituals, and occupations of these people with the precision of an ethnographer. The non-narrative sources mentioned above were written by contemporaries of the events and are therefore of particular value. What image of the Rus (Rus) do the texts of the 10th century give? The Rus appear as compact communities engaged in the slave trade, a normal and extremely profitable occupation at that time. In contrast to the image from textbooks, the Rus occupy a small territory and are all located in Kyiv. Rus in the 10th century are not interested in vast territories, but in control over trade routes. Their community is not engaged in agriculture and is dependent on their neighbors. From the sources of the 10th century, a completely different history emerges than in the chronicle. Not a military-state, but a trade and commercial one, supported by archeology. It is based on long-distance trade, connecting different, distant markets. The subjects of such a history of early Rus' are military-trading companies. Otium.Academy - education of free people. https://otium.academy/ / otium.academy