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 c. 830 and the 890s.
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 (r. 980–1015), Yaroslav the Wise (r. 1019–1054), and perhaps Sviatoslav II of Kiev (r. 1073–1076) and Oleg I of Chernigov (r. 1097–1115) 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 c. 839 to c. 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".
"[...] Misit etiam cum eis quosdam, qui se, id est gentem suam, Rhos vocari dicebant, quos rex illorum, Chacanus vocabulo, ad se amicitiae, sicut asserebant, causā direxerat, petens per memoratam epistolam, quatenus benignitate imperatoris redeundi facultatem atque auxilium per imperium suum totum habere possent, quoniam itinera per quae ad illum Constantinopolim venerant, inter barbaras et nimiae feritatis gentes immanissimas habuerant, quibus eos, ne forte periculum inciderent, redire noluit. Quorum adventūs causam imperator diligentius investigans, comperit eos gentis esse Sueonum, exploratores potius regni illius nostrique quam amicitiae petitores ratus, penes se eo usque retinendos judicavit, quod veraciter invenire posset, utrum fideliter eo necne pervenerint; [...]""[...] He also sent with the envoys some men who said they – meaning their whole people [gens] – were called Russians and had been sent to him by their king whose name was the Khagan for the sake of friendship, so they claimed. Theophilus requested in his letter that the Emperor in his goodness might grant them safe conducts to travel through his empire and any help or practical assistance they needed to return home, for the route by which they had reached Constantinople had taken them through primitive tribes that were very fierce and savage and Theophilus did not wish them to return that way in case some disaster befell them. When the Emperor investigated more closely the reason for their coming here, he discovered that they belonged to the people of the Swedes. He suspected that they had really been sent as spies to this kingdom of ours rather than as seekers of our friendship, so he decided to keep them with him until he could find out for certain whether or not they had come in good faith. [...]"
- (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:
"[...] Chaganum vero nos [sic] praelatum Avarum, non Gazanorum aut Nortmannorum nuncupari repperimus, neque principem Vulgarum, set regem vel dominum Vulgarum. [...]""But we have found that the leader (praelatus) of the Avars is called Khagan (chaganum), but not (non) the leader of the Gazani or the Northmen, nor (neque) the prince of the Bulgars but (the latter is called) king or lord of the Bulgars."
- (1c) The Arabic "Anonymous Note" dating from c. 870–880, which was reused by a number of Arabic and Persian writers, including the following:
- Ahmad ibn Rustah wrote c. 903–913 (or c. 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") r. 980–1015), and his son Georgij, baptismal name of Yaroslav the Wise (r. 1019–1054).
- (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 (r. 1073–1076): "G-d, save our Kagan" (Church Slavonic: съпаси Ги҃ каг[а]на нашего, romanized: Sŭpasi g[ospod]i kag[a]na nashego; Russian: Спаси Г[оспод]и каг[а]на нашего, romanized: Spasi g[ospod]i kag[a]na nashego).
- (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 (qui se, id est gentem suam, Rhos vocari dicebant) 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. 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", 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 (c. 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", c. 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. 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 (Old East Slavic: каганъ, romanized: kaganŭ) 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).