slavs and the east
TRANSCRIPT
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The
Slavs and the East
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T h e
Slavs
and
the
East
Editors
Mikhail
Tikhomirov, Academician
BabadjaiyGafurov,
Corresponding
M e m b e r of the
U . S . S . R .
Academy
ofSciences
r
1
1 Unesco
2> C *(*{]
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te bi;,
t h
4/D.58/A
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Contents
Preface 7
Introduction
9
Ancientneighboursof theSlavs 17
Early sources 21
Thefirstourneysto theEast 28
Tradeand
trade
routes
33
The
interaction of cultures 38
Oriental
studies 54
The
awakeningoftheEast 63
The
SovietEast 67
Culturalrelationstoday 71
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Articles contributed by: Leonid Vassilyev, Yuri
Zavadovsky,
Vladimir Korolyuk, Yuri Nasenko,
Anatoli Novoseltsev,
A n n a
Tveritinova, Naftula Khalfin,
Nina
Shastina.
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Preface
T h e present work isoneof a
series
ofbookletsfor thegeneral
public,
which
deal with various aspects of theMajor Project
o n Mutual Appreciation ofEastern and
Western
Cultural
Values.
It was prepared,at therequest ofthe
Secretariat,
by
the National
Commission
forUnesco of the
Union
ofSoviet
Socialist
Republics.
Thispublication
is
thus
acontribution
by the U . S . S . R . Natio
nal Commission
to the
implementation
of theMajor
Project.
It so
happens that one
of its
twoprincipal authors, Professor
Babadjan Gafurov, corresponding
m e m b e r of the
U . S . S . R .
A c a d e m y
ofSciences,ischairmanof the East-West
Committee
set up withintheNationalCommission.
T h e
other is
M r . M i k
halTikhomirov,
m e m b e r
of the U . S . S . R .
A c a d e m y
ofSciences.
These twoscholars requested agroup ofauthors, members
of
the Institute of
Asian
Peoples, the Institute ofHistory and
the Institute ofSlavonic Studies,towrite thevarious chapters
ofthework,whichcovers the followingsubjects:theneighbours
of the Slavsin
antiquity;
earliestrecords;firstourneysto the
East; trade andtrade routes;
cultural
influences; Oriental
studies; the
awakening
of theEast; theSoviet East; today's
cultural
links. T he opinions expressed in these pages are
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Preface
8
therefore
those
of the
authors,
and their
observations
do not
necessarilyreflect
Unesco's views.
The Organization
is,
however,
grateful
to
them
for
having
described thedevelopment ofmutual understanding between
Eastern andWestern culturesfrom thestandpoint of theSlav
peoples,
andforhavingtaken equalaccountof the phenomena
of the past andofthe present repercussionsofthesereciprocal
influences.
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Introduction
T h e
progress
m a d e
in the
U . S . S . R .
in the study of the
history
of
the
culture
of Eastern and Slav
countries
is
a
matter of
c o m
m o n
knowledge,
but w e arestillnotin a
positionfar from
ittogiveaconcise,
clear
account of the relations between
the Slav peoples and the peoples of the East through the cen
turies.
In studying
ancient
periods,
researchers
are
hampered,
above
all, by thescantinessand fragmentary
nature
ofwritten
sources. Consequently, the historianisconstantly obligedto
rely
only on
mute
archaeological
remains
or
on
linguistic
and
ethnographical data, which cannot yet be accurately dated.
O n
the
otherhand,
as
we c o m e
closerto
modern
times, sources
become both more
numerous
and more
varied.
Present-day
historians
must
not only uncover but alsoselecttheirmaterial
in order not to
lose
sightof the
forest
for thetrees.
Since
this
paper is being
written
at atime w h e n very m a n y
aspectsof thesubject'the Slavs and the East' arestillcontro
versial,
hypothetical
or
insufficiently
studied,
w h e n
our
k n o w
ledge about contacts
between
the countries of the East and
those of Central and Eastern
Europe
throughout the ages and,
more especially, during ancient and mediaeval times,is still
fragmentary, and w h e n m u c h of the
data
relatingto the
recent
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Introduction
io
past andmore
modern
timesstillawaits specialized investiga
tion,
it is
naturally not the
purpose
of
this
pamphlet
to
cover
thewholerangeofproblems,eveninavery cursory w a y .
In
setting forth the basic
factsin
the history of contacts
betweentheSlav peoplesand theEast,the writers ofthispaper
realized thattheterms 'Slavs' and 'East' are, historically
speaking, by nomeans identical concepts. Theterm 'East'
inthispamphlet
means
thenumerouspeoplesofAsia,speaking
a
multitudeoflanguages,
often unrelated
to
one
another.
These
peoples
were
in the
pastand
still areat
different
stages of social development andtheir material andcultural
traditions are highly disparate. Theconcept 'Slavs', onthe
other hand,
isan ethnical one,coveringagroupofpeoples
interconnected
by
a
certain c o m m o n origin and
similarity
of
languages.Itis true
that
theSlav peoples too,once theprimi
tive
community stage wasover,didnot constituteasingle
historicalunit. In thecourseoftheirdevelopment, they c a m e
into contactwith tribesandpeoples ofdifferent cultures and
different origins, so that the ethnical elements entering into
the formation of the contemporary Slav peoples were by no
means uniform.Inthe past, nevertheless, despite differences
of religion andallowing for certain specific features andirre
gularitiesof socialdevelopment, theSlav peoples were always
united
bytheir c o m m o n derivation
froma
single primitive
Slav
race and by the
similarity
of
theirhistorical
past
andtheir
spiritual
andmaterial culture.
A t the same time,itmust beemphasized, w h e n studying
the close ethnical,culturalandhistoricaltiesuniting theSlav
peoples throughout theages, that the contacts
between
these
peoples
and the
East, from earliest times, were merely
part
ofawhole pattern of contactsbetween the peoples ofAsia
and thoseofCentral andEastern Europe,inwhich notonly
the Slav peoples but also Germans andHungarians, R u m a
nians
and
Albanians,
and the
peoples
of the Baltic
provinces
and
Scandinavia
participated; moreover, these contacts
never
took the
form
ofmutual relationsbetween two hermetically
sealed
ordiametrically opposed worlds. The special nature
of the historical processinthe
W e s t
andtheEast did not
imply any basic contradiction between them.Fundamentally
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11
Introduction
speaking,
thehistorical
progress
ofh u m a n societyin
East
and
West
proceeded along
identical
Unes,
with the
transition
of
both Eastern andWestern peoples
from
one
stage
of
deve
lopment
to the next higher
stage
being governed by the same
socialand economic
lawsin
each case. T h esocialandspiri
tual
motives
which
impelled the peoples of the East and the
West
respectively
to
embark
on the hardfight
against
oppres
sion
and
toaspire
to,
believein
and fight
for
social
justice
were,if
not
identical,at
any
rate
very
similar.
This is
particu
larlyapparent
at
the
present
time,
w h e n
the peoples of both
Europe
and
Asia
have rallied
togetherin
the
community
of
nations,united
in the
c o m m o n
struggle
for
socialism,
progress
andpeace.
The Slav peoples have played
alarge
and important part
in the
historical contacts
that have enriched the cultureof
the peoples ofEuropeand
Asia
through the
centuries precisely
becauseof
the fact that,
geographically
speaking,
the
Slav
peoples
were close
neighbours of Eastern peoples. Their lands
were
traversed,
ever
since
the very
early Middle Ages,
by
the
most
important
transit traderoutes
of the
world, linking
the thenflourishing
countries
of the East with
afeudal Europe
emergingfrom the
ruins
and ashes of the AncientWorld.
The Slav languages belong
to the
very extensive Indo-
European family,
which
includes
theR o m a n c e , Germanic
and Slav tongues, the languages of the Greeks, the
Celts,
the
Letts
and Lithuanians, the
Iranians
and
Armenians,
the Indians,
Thracians and
Illyrians.
Slavs
were
the
aboriginal
inhabitants
of vast areas
of Central and Eastern
Europe located
within
the
present
boundaries of the Soviet
Union
and Poland,between
the Dnieper and the Oder.
A sa
result
of
extensive transmigration,in the
course of
which
the ne wethnical m a p ofEurope took shape, the Slav
tribesestablished
themselves
in
the territory of modern C z e
choslovakia and
settledin
Pannonia
(where
the Hungarians
appeared
later
and
founded
their
feudal State).
The Slav
populations,
little
by
little
occupied the
whole
of the
area
lying
between the
Oder
and the
Elbe,
advancingevenin
some
placesbeyond
the Elbe
to
the
west. Almostat
the same time
the Slav
tribesbegan
to
m o v e
forward
into
the
Balkans,where,
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Introduction
ia
by the middleof the eighthcentury, they already
constituted
the dominant ethnical,militaryandpoliticalforce,occupying
a
large
part
of the peninsula.
The
era ofmass Slav migrations in the
early Middle Ages
was
also
the time w h e n the three
main
branches of the
great
Slavpeople tookfinalshape.T h e East Slavs include the pre
sent-day Russians, Ukrainians and Byelorussians; the
West
Slavsthe Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, and Sorbs or Lusations;
South
Slavs (Bulgarians, Serbs, Macedonians, Croats and
Slovenes)
occupied theBalkan peninsula.
Subsequently,
substantialchangesoccurred along the western
frontiers of the Slav world. T h eGerman feudal drive to the
East reduced the sizeof Slav-occupied territoryin the West,
where the Slav tribes along the Elbe and the Baltic found
themselvesabsorbed by theGermanicethnicmass.
At
the sametime, the territoryoccupied by the Slavs
expan
ded
considerably to the south and
east.
T h e East Slavs not
onlystood up to the
attacks
of the n o m a d tribesof the
Black
Sea steppes and threw off the Tartar-Mongolianrule which
had stifled theirspiritualandmaterialculturefor threecentu
ries;but they evensucceeded in conqueringlargeareasof the
Black Sea steppes, besides embarkingon
large-scaleeconomic
developmentof thelimitlessexpanses of the Urals andSiberia.
Thisexpansion,begunas
early
as thesixteenthand seventeenth
centuries by peasants and Cossacks pushing south and
east,
eventually
m a d e
the Russian Slavs
direct
neighbours of the
peoples of Central
Asia
and the Far East.
The
clearestillustrationof thetremendousprogressive
impor
tance ofthisdrive of the Eastern Slavs to the shores of the
Pacific Ocean is the present-day economic andcultural deve
lopment
of
Siberia,
which Soviet people are transforming into
a very advanced industrial and agricultural region with a
highly developed
scientific
and
culturallife.
But another inference mayalso be drawn from the fore
going:
the
influence
exerted
by
relations
and
links
with Eastern
countries
on their social,political and cultural
development
wasby nomeans identicalfor all the Slav peoples. Th eeffect
of
such contacts was,quite obviously, m u c h greater in the
case of the Southern Slavs,
w h o
remained for m a n y centuries
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13
Introduction
under
the feudal yoke of the Turks, and had m a n y
economic
linksof all kinds with the countries ofAsia Minor and the
Middle
East, than in the case of the
Western
Slavs. But
the Eastern Slavs alsoRussians and Ukrainians, in
parti
cularhad, and
still have, specially close
contacts with
a great
variety
of
Asiatic
countries. This circumstance has,
of course, influenced our choice ofhistoricalmaterial for the
present
pamphlet.
T h e Slavs,likethe otherpeoples ofEurope,havenot merely
helped to shape the
n e w ethnicalstructure
of
Europe
but
have
also,
from
the very
outset,
played an
active part
in
European
cultural,economic
and
politicallife.
Together with the
R o m a
nic and
Germanic
peoples, they were theheirsof the Graeco-
R o m a n Mediterranean civilization of the Ancient
World,
based,
in turn,on the tremendousachievements of the
ancient
civilizations of Asia and Africa. T h e Slav peoples m a d e an
enormous contribution
to the development of European cul
tureand science, and so played anactive partincreatingworld
culturaltradition
as a
whole
and
contributed
to the triumphs
o f h u m a n genius in all spheres ofknowledge,
from
elaborating
the heliocentric theory to penetrating the deepest secretsof
the structureof matter and the
heroic
conquest of the cosmos.
Y e t , the advance of European civilizationwas never an
iso
lated
phenomenon: it
drew
its inspiration, throughout the
centuries,
from
the superior,
vitalizing civilizations
createdby
the peoples of the East,
just
as the peoples of the East, in
their
turn,particularly
in
recent
and
modern
times,
have
absorbed
into
their
culturesandassimilated the technical andspiritual
achievementsofEurope.
T h e
fact that
the Slav peoples played an important part in
this
mutually
enriching exchange
of
technical
and cultural
values is due mainly to the links
which
thesepeoples had, in
ancient
times and for
m a n y centuries,
maintained with the
East. T h e Slav peoples, in creating
their
indigenous
civili
zation, had always maintained extremely close and varied
culturalcontactswith
other
peoples.
T h e historyof
relations
betweenthe Slav peoples and peoples
of
the East had, of course, in
addition
tothesefruitfulexchanges
of
ideas
and achievements, its
negative
aspectstoowhich
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Introduction
4
brings
us
b a c k
to a
p r o b l e m
already
mentioned a b o v e , that
of
the choice of material for
this
p a m p h l e t .
T h a t
we decided, eventually, to confine ourselves to cul
tural
and
historical
problems was not due to any reluctance
o n
our part to
touch u p o n
the
c o m p l e x
and controversial
aspects of the past.
W e
do not in the least underestimate the
significance of
political
contacts and
relations
in history
w h i c h , incidentally,
have
been studied in relatively greater
detail;
nor do we take the
view that
historyshould ignore
such
negative p h e n o m e n a as the three-century-long yoke imposed
by
the Tartars on
Russia,
the six centuries of
Turkish
feudal
rule in the
Balkans
or the predatory nature of
Tsarist
foreign
policy.But at
this
juncture,
w h e n
our planet is threatened by
the monstrous scourge of nuclear war and the
sole
alternative
to a disastrous world-wide atomic conflict is peaceful co-exis
tence
between
countries with
different social systems, first
priority m u s t , in our opinion, be given to studying andclari
fying those aspects of past history w h i c h help to bring nations
closer
together and increase
their
m u t u a l
understanding
and
respect.
T h e
t e a m of
authors,
representing
m e m b e r s
of the Institute
of Asian
Peoples, the
Institute
of History and the
Institute
of
SlavStudies of the
U . S . S . R .
A c a d e m y of Sciences, hasconcen
trated
on questions of economic andcultural contacts between
the Slav countries and the countries of the East, on the tradi
tions of
their c o m m o n
revolutionary struggle, and on
broad
co-operation
between
t h e m
in
m o d e r n
times; and has
selected
a nd arranged
the material so as to
illustrateclearly
and
vividly
the following
m a i n
th emes:
Cultural
or economic
isolation
has never proved favourable
to
real social,
economic and cultural progress. Large-scale
exchanges
of
cultural
values and
mutually
advantageous
economic
exchanges have always p r o m o t e d
the general
progress
of countries and peoples, without materially afFec-
tingeither their
individual
i m a g e
or the
originality
of
their
culture.
E c o n o m i c andcultural relations between peoples, along with
greater k n o w l e d g e of one
another,
constitute
powerful
levers
that
help in discarding o u t w o r n national prejudices. B y
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15
Introduction
overcoming the racial,national andreligiousbarriers erec
ted in thepastby the
exploiting classes,
nations
will
thereby
remove
a
serious
hindrance to
h u m a n
progress.
T h e
abolition
of
national
and
social
oppression, as seen
from
the example of the development of Eastern peoples in the
Soviet Union, creates the mostfavourable possibilitiesfor a
veryextensiveinternationalexchange.
T h e
present-day development of extensive co-operation be
tween
the peoples of the East, the Slavcountries, and all
the countries with socialist
systems yields
beneficial results
in all branches of
their
domestic and
international
develop
ment.
Such
co-operation is equally important to bothparties
and it serves the interestsofmankind as a whole, since it
helps to solve the
most
burning
problem
of the present-
day worldwaror peacein favour ofpeace.
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Ancient
neighbours
of the Slavs
A glance at the map ofEurope andAsia immediatelyshows
that the mountain range of the Urals, separating the Eastern
European plain from Siberia, breaks off at its southern end
before reaching the Caspian Sea, and forms a sort of natu
ral gateway,where the steppes ofAsiameet those of the
Black
Sea
region.
Long
before they were ploughed up by Soviet tractors,
thesesteppes were, in
Gogol's
words, 'a green andvirginwil
derness'.
Covered
with tall
feather-grass
that would hide a
horseman, they provided the ancient nomads with rich pas
tures.
T h e
Asiatic
peoples
found
here
their
most convenient
route
from
eastto
west,
and in the opposite
direction,
or
across
their
path,
m o v e d
those Slav
tribes w h o
sought anoutlet to
w a r m seas or
n e w
andfertilelands toconquer.
Ties of
mutual influence
linked up at the meeting-point of
these
two
ethnic
and
cultural
streams.
F or a long period during thelastmillenniumB . C . , Scythians
and
Sarmatians'the mare-milkers'led a
nomadic existence
to the north of the
Black
and Caspian Seas. These were
peoples of
European racial
type, whose
languagesknown
as Eastern-Iranianwere distantly related to Persian.
S o m e
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Ancient
neighbours
oftheSlavs
18
of t h e m contributed to the development of an
advanced
Graeco-Scythian
culture
on the shores of the
Black
Sea,
w h e r e G r e e k colonies
w e r e
situated.
G o l d vessels and o r n a m e n t s , unearthed in great
n u m b e r s
from
Scythian burial m o u n d s ,
form
a
collection
of extreme
rarity,of w h i c h the
U . S . S . R .
is
justly
p r o u d .
TheG r e ekhisto
rian Herodotus describes h o w the Scythians buried
their
kings.
W h e n the king died, his favourite concubine and faithful
servants w e r e
first
strangled and then buried with h i m a s
well as his
finest
horses and golden vessels, for the Scythians
believed that the
dead
m a n w o u l d
need
all these in the other
world.A high m o u n d w a s raisedover the t o m b .
T h e descendants of the Scythians and Sarmatians settled
o n the shores of the Black Sea and intermingled
partially
with
the Eastern Slavs, w h o inherited a n u m b e r of w o r d s from the
vocabulary
of the Scythians. The Russian w o r d for dog,
sobaka for e x a m p l e , is considered to be one such ancient
borrowing.
It is
certain that
the present
n a m e s
of
s o m e
of
the rivers of the
Ukraine
are also East-Iranian in structure.
M o r e o v e r , it m u s t be a s s u m e d that m a n y Slavonic-Iranian
linguisticsimilarities
can be explained by the c o m m o n origin
of
these
I n d o - E u r o p e a n peoples; whilstsimilaritiesin thefields
of mythology,
religion and
ethnics clearlyreflect
the ancient
c o m m u n i t y of religion, mythology and culture, and conse
quent closeculturalcontacts that
existed
between the Iranians,
in the
wider
sense of the
term,
and the Slavs.
B e y o n d the Scythians, further to the east,livedthe ancestors
of the Turkic-Altaic peoples. T h e y
w e r e
also horse-breeders,
a n d their culture, to judge from archaeological data, in m a n y
w a y s resembled that of the Scythians. This is particularly
proved by a burial m o u n d discovered by
Soviet
archaeologists
in the perpetual
frost
zone of the Altai M o u n t a i n s : here, the
deceased shorses
w e r e
buried along with h i m .
T h e
H u n s ,
who belonged to the
s a m e
racial
and
linguistic
g r o u p ,
m o v e d into
E u r o p e
in thefifthcentury A . D . andleft
similar burial
grounds
in w h a t is now Czechoslovakia. After
the H u n s
w e r e
defeated at the battleof Chalons on the
Cata-
launian plains in 451 and driven out of W e ste rn E u r o p e , they
w e r e rapidly absorbedby other n o m a d i c peoples.
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19
Ancient neighbours of the
Slavs
S o m e
time later, in the sixth and seventh centuries, the
Bulgars, wh o are believed to have belonged to the Turkic
peoples, appeared in the
steppes
of South Russia.
S o m e
of
them moved towards the Balkans;crossingthe Danube, they
found themselves among Slavs and
rapidly
adopted and
m a s
teredthe Slavonic language and
culture. S o m e
ofthem moved
to the upperVolga,
where
theyfounded the
State
of the 'Volga
or
K a m a
Bulgars',
which
for a long time played an important
role
as an
intermediary
in
trade between
the Slavs and the
peoples of the East.
Another
intermediary
in
trading
relations
between
the
Slavs and the East was the
Khazar Khaganate, which
existed
o n the lower
Volga
untilthe end of the
first
millennium A . D .
and which
consisted
ofTurkic peopleswhoseleadershad adopted
Judaism.
A m o n g the north-eastern neighbours of the Slavs
were
the
Finno-Ugrians, wh o
traded
between the third and seventh
centuries A . D . with Sassanid Iran and the Caucasus. A m o n g
these
peoples ancientRussian
chronicles
mention the Chudes,
Mordvins, M u r o m s and Cheremissi. S o m e of
these
have gone
o n
living in almost the same places up to the presentday.
Others moved far to the west,likethe Magyars, wh o settled
inCentralEurope.
In regionswhere the Eastern Slavs came intocontactwith
the Chudes, the Russian population, into which the
Chudes
were subsequently absorbed, haspreserved a peculiar type of
ornament:a pendant in the
form
of a smallduck with a lump
ofearth
in its beak.Thislittle
duck
figuresn the cosmogonical
talesof the Finno-Ugrians and theVolgaBulgars.
In north-eastern Europe, sheltered by the Urals and by
dense forests,
lived
the Ugrians, Permians and
K o m i .
For
more
than
fifteen
hundred years they accumulated unique
treasure
hoards,
buried
under the ground. Embossed
dishes
and
cups of
silvergilt,
unearthed in
this
regionin thenineteenth
and early
twentieth centuries, are exhibited in the 'Sassanid
R o o m
of the HermitageM u s e u m in Leningrad.
Russian popular art,
likethat
ofseveralotherSlav peoples,
has preserved a number ofmotifsin c o m m o n with the art of
the Scythians, the
Altai
peoples, the Bulgars, the Finno-Ugrians
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neighbours
ofthe
Slavs
20
an d the Sassanid Iranians. T h e portrayal ofanimals,inparti
cular,
becameverywidespread
a m o n g all these
peoples.
K n o w n
customarily to specialistsas the 'animal
style ,
this
style
was
formed
whilethe Scythians
were
stillin Hither
Asia,
and spread
from
there to Iran, the Caucasus and CentralAsia,as far as
the Altai andnorth-westIndia.
Animals
were
represented both singly, in
pairs
and 'face
to face', and also in
rows. Hunting scenes,
or those represen
tingthe attacksof predatory beasts ondeer and other hoofed
animalsareparticularly
c o m m o n .
Fantasticfigures, half-beast,
half-human, sometimes with appendages in the form of birds'
wingsor a snake-liketail,are also c o m m o n . All these griffons,
sirens
and centaurs
sometimes
underwentByzantineprocessing
before appearing as decorations on north Russian embroidery,
o n
spinningwheels,and on other
householdarticles.
These
different
phenomena, considered as a whole, are
eloquenttestimony to the
fact that
at notimein h u m a n history
were East and West separated from each other by a blank
wall,
but
that
the cultures of Eastern and
Western
peoples
developed
under
conditions of prolonged and
rather
varied
contacts.
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Whereas our knowledge of the earliest contacts between the
Slavs and Eastern peoples derives from
folklore, linguistics,
toponymy and archaeology, andfrom fragmentary information
supplied by R o m a n writers (Pliny and others), wehave at
our disposal, from the sixth century A . D . onwards,
written
evidence of contacts between the Slav world and the East
which, though
still
verydisjointed and fragmentary, is never
thelessimportant. This was the period w h e n the Slavs
became
well
k n o w n
inByzantium.The Byzantinegovernment
enrolled
detachments of Slavs in its
service
and used
them
in wars
with Sassanid
Iran.
It was through the
Greeks
that the very
n a m e , 'Slavs',became k n o w nin the East.
B ut was it only through the Greeks
that
sixth-century Iran
learned
of the existence,somewhere in the far north, of a
tall,
fair-haired
race, renowned for its courage andvirility?Th e
sixthcentury
w a s ,
afterall, thegreatestage of Sassanid expan
sion; its garrisons then held the impregnable Derbentcitadel
an d the DarielPass, so preventing the
nomads from
invading
Transcaucasia. It is a
pity
thatthe
Iranian
sources of the period
havenot reached us. Butm u c h
laterchroniclers
of the Caspian
regions, historians in particular, were not only
familiar
with
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22
the legends handed
d o w n
from former times but alsowith the
chroniclers
of the
pre-Muslim
period.
It ispreciselyin
their
work
that
we
find
severalrathervague references to the Slavs,
w h o became k n o w n
in
Iran
in the second
half
of the sixthand
the
first
hirdof the seventhcenturies.
It
may
be
assumed
that as
early
as the seventh and
eighth
centuries,
Slavsettlements
existed
somewherenear the middle
D o n , which Arab
authors
of the eighth and ninth
centuries
called
'theriverof the Slavs'.
F r o m
the
eighth
century
onwards
there
was
increasingly
important commerce
between
the
countries
of the
Arab
Cali
phate and
those
of Eastern Europe and the Baltic seaboard.
F r o mits
very beginnings,
a
particularlyimportant rolein
this
trade
was played by the route along the River Volga.The
Volga itselfiscalled the 'Russian River' byArabgeographers
of the
tenth
century. The boats of Eastern merchants m o v e d
northwards alongitscourse, passing through the rich
trading
centres
of
Itil
(near
present-day Astrakhan) and Bulgar
(south
ofthe mouthof the
K a m a ) .
They were attracted
there
by the
legendary richesof the northern lands, and
primarily
by
their
furs: silver
fox, sable, marten, ermine, beaver and the pelts
of other animals. Their value was well k n o w ninK h o r e z m ,
as well as inBokhara,Rai,Baghdadand Cairo. Poets sang
their
praises,and kings, emirs andfamouspotentates stroveto outdo
eachother
with magnificentgiftsfrom the denseforestsand the
rivers
of the
distant
northlands.
Finest
of
all
were
the
furs
from
the land of the
Volga
Bulgars and the Russian north.
In
additionto
furs,
Eastern Europe exported wax,honey and
slaves.Thecountriesof the Slavs
received
inreturnthe products
of sophisticated Eastern artisans, and,inparticularly
large
quantities,
silvercoins.Itis nomerecoincidence
that,
through
out the whole vast
area
inwhich the Eastern and Western
Slavsweresettled,numeroushoards of
silver
coins of theeighth
to
tenth centuries
are
still
being discovered, bearing
silent
wit
ness to thelively
trading
relations that
existed
with the East in
those
distanttimes.
But
Eastern merchantswere not the only activeparties
in
this
trade.'Trading guests' from the Slavswerefamiliar figures
in
various towns
of the Caliphate. Ibn
Khurdadbih,
an
Arab
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Early
sources
geographer
of the
ninth
century, provides us with evidence of
their regularvisitsto Eastern lands. He wrote: 'Concerning
the Russian merchants, they are a kind of Slavs, and
bring
beaver fur, the fur of the
silver
fox and
swords
from the most
remote
partsof the Slav land to the R o m a n (Black)
Sea
and
the Emperorof the R o m a n s (Byzantium)
levies
atitheon
them
(the
merchants)
; and, if they so
desire,
they set off along the
Tanais (Don), the
river
of the Slavs, and pass through the
narrows of the
capital
of the Khazars, and the
ruler
of the
Khazars
leviesa
tithe
on
them.
Thenthey set off for the
Dzhurd-
zhan
(Caspian) Sea and land on whatever shore they
please...
and sometimes they
carrytheir
goodson
camels
from Dzhurd-
zhan to
Baghdad, where
Slav slaves
serve
them
as inter
preters.
The lively
traderelations
between the countriesof the Cali
phate and the lands of the Slavs
strengthened
the interest
taken in the Slavs by
Arab
science. In
workswritten
as
early
as the eighth to
tenth centuries, scholarsfind quite
a lot of
important
data
about the Slavs. Geographical and
historical
works
of that period
contain material
concerning the
origin
of
the Slavs,
theircontacts
withother peoples,
their
churches
and
religion,
the lifeand customs of the different tribes, the
firstSlavStatesetc.
At
the beginning of the
tenth
century, the
vizier
of thecentral
Asian
State
of the Samanids
was
al-Dzhaykhani. This
enlight
ened minister combined his activitiesas a statesman with an
interest
in
science;
he
patronizedscholars,
and was himself a
student of geography. In compiling his great geographical
work, he not only m a d e
wide
use of the
works
of his predeces
sors,
the
Greek
and
Arab
geographers, but
also
in seeking to
fillin the gaps
which existed
in
theseworks,
and, if
possible,
to add new and contemporary
material,
he gathered around
him merchants w h o had travelled to distant lands and ques
tioned
them
about the lands and peoples they had seen.These
merchants included people w h o had
been
to the
Volga,
and
also
to thedistanttown
of'Kuyab'
(Kiev),the Russiancapital.
The inquisitive minister-geographer heard from
them
about
the
greatriches
ofthatcountry, about its warlike and
doughty
inhabitants,
about the
relations
between the Russians and
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Early sources
24
neighbouring peoples and, in
particular,
about their trade.
Eastern merchants and travellers c a m e to the lands of the
Slavs
from
the W e s t ,
from
M o s l e m Spain. Ibrahim ibn
Y a k u b
m a d e
such a journey to the landsof the Western Slavs in the
sixtiesof the
tenth
century,and hasleftus an extremelyinte
restingaccount. A m o n g the SlavStates,he
described
Bohemia,
Poland, the
principality
of the
Obodriti
and Bulgaria. He did
notvisitthe
latter
country but saw ambassadorsfrom Bulgaria
during an audience given by the G e r m a n Emperor Otto I.
These
ambassadors 'wore narrow cloaks fastened with long
belts
which
had gold and
silver
buttons'.
Ibrahim ibn
Y a k u b
wrote of the Bulgarians that they had translated the Gospels
intothe Slav language.
This traveller
goes
into
m u c h
greaterdetail
concerning the
Western
Slavs, w h o m he,
more
often than not, calls 'Slavs'.
Speaking of the activities of the population, he noted that
'they (the Slavs) are diligentin tillingthe soilandearning a
livelihood
and
surpass
all northern peoples in this respect .
Himself
an
inhabitant
of the
torrid
south,
where
the farmer
often
ran theriskoflosinghisentireharvestas aresultofdrought,
Ibrahim ibn Y a k u b remarkedthatin the country of the Slavs
nosuch a danger
existed.
T h e
Slavs were,
from
ancient times,
k n o w n
in the East as
a northernpeople. Eastern scholarsof the timeeven explained
such superficial characteristics of the Slavs as
their
fair hair
and their fresh complexion by the peculiarities of the cold
northern climate.
Nor did Ibrahim ibn
Y a k u b
failto mention
this,
although he was, of course, clearly exaggerating w h e n
he wrotethat the Slavs, accustomed to the cold climate, were
afraid to
travel even
to
Lombardy
or to Italy, because the
greatheat would, as they alleged,havefatalconsequences for
them. At the same time, he noted, evidentlywith s o m e sur
prise, that the inhabitants of
Bohemia
were
generally
dark-
haired.
N o r
did he omit to mention the
towns
of the Slavs, paying
particular attention to a
description
of Prague. This town,
which
was celebrated for making
saddles
and
shields,
was
visited by Russian, Polish,
Pomeranian,
Varangian, Jewish
and
M o s l e m merchants.
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25
Early
sources
B y the end of the
tenth century,
paganism in Russia was
in
decline.
W h e n the Russian prince, Vladimir Svyatoslavich
('the
Saint'),
head ofo ne of thelargestEuropeanStates,decided
to 'abandon the old gods',in the wordsof the Russian Primary
Chronicle, he organized an unusual competition between
representatives of the three
biggest monotheistic
religions
Christianity, Islam and Judaismthe so-called
testing
of
faiths .
At the
prince s request,
representatives of each reli
gion told him about the significance and special
features
of
their faith. The
chronicler relates that
Vladimir was at
first
attracted
to the
M o s l e m
religion,
but
some
of its
dogmas,
such
as the ban on
wine
and pork,
were
not to his
taste.Finally,
Russia acceptedChristianity
from
Byzantium.
This was not, of course, because Vladimirstubbornly refused
toabstain
from
wineand pork, but becausepoliticalconditions
in the tenth
century,
the presence of
Christian
neighbours to
the south and west, and, bythattime, ofquitestrongChristian
elements in Russia,
obliged
the
prince
to declare for Christ
rather than M o h a m m e d . But it is curious that this
testing
of
faiths ,
although it is
basically
cloaked in legend, found expres
sionin theliteratureof the East. In thefirsthalfof thethirteenth
century,
M o h a m m e d Awfi, a
Persian
poet from
Central
Asia
living in India, compiled a unique anthology, Jawami ul-
Hikayatin which herecounts,
inter
alia, h ow the prince of the
Russians, Buldmir (Vladimir), sent ambassadors to Khorezm,
as he wished to adopt Islam.
T h e contacts between the Eastern Slavs and the peoples
of the Northern Caucasus and Transcaucasia
wereparticularly
close. Georgia
became
a strong and united kingdom in the
twelfth century. Georgia was k n o w n in Russia as the
land
of
the Abkhazians (Abkhazia). T h e Russian Chronicle has pre
served for us considerable information about the diplomatic
and
dynastic
relationsof Russian
princes
with the rulinghouse
of Georgia.Thus,in 1 152 , Prince Mstislavmarried the daughter
of
the king of the Abkhazians (his wife was the aunt of the
famous Georgian
queen,
Tamara, w h o herself took a Russian
princeling
as herfirsthusband).
There is also evidence ofcultural contacts between Russia
and Transcaucasia. Georgian craftsmen are
believed
to have
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26
participatedin theconstructionof thecelebratedchurches of the
capital
city
of
Vladimir
on the
Klyazma.
Eastern, Western and Southern Slavs derived their k n o w
ledge
of
the East both
from contemporaryword-of-mouthreports
and from historical literature, principally Greek. Russian,
Polish and
Czech
annals and
chronicles
(for
example,
the
Polishchronicleof Gallus A n o n y m u s , and the Czech chronicle
of Cosmas
ofPrague,
compiled
in the eleventh to
twelfth
cen
turies,
contained a
certain amount
of information about the
civilizations
of the ancient EastEgypt, Assyria, Media and
Iran.
The compiler of the
twelfth-century
Russian Primary
Chronicle was obviously
familiar
with the geography and
historyof Eastern
countries.Thus,
he speaks of the
traderoute
alongtheVolgato the'Khvalynskoe' (Caspian) Sea andfurther
to 'Khvalisi' (Khorezm). T he
work
of the
fifteenth-century
Polish
chronicler,
Jan Dlugosz, contains numerous references
to the ancientand mediaeval peoples of the East.
The
last
of the
great
Arab
travellers
of the
Middle
Ages
k n o w n
to us to
havevisited
the Slavs was the Andalusian
A b u
H a m i d
of
Granada,
w h o spent fifty-six of the ninetyyears of
his
life
in long journeys through
different countries
in
Asia
and
Europe.
Helivedfor a long time in Saksin, a townof the
eleventh to
thirteenthcenturies,
situated at the mouth of the
Volga, on the siteof the ancientItil and he had a house in
Hungary.
Abu
H a m i d
also
visited
Bulgar on the Volga, and
on
his
return
journey
from there
(in the
third
decade
of the
twelfth
century) he travelled through
part
of the
territory
of
the Eastern Slavs,
leaving
behind him a
sort
of
diary
of his
journey. A n outstanding
characteristic
of this man was his
love for all
forms
of the odd or unusual.
Thus,
the
section
of
his notes about the country of the Slavs (the Russians) begins
with a
description
offorms ofexchange
which
had impressed
him. In the
part
of Russia which this traveller
visited,
the
means
of exchange was not metal coins,
which
the
Arab
merchant wasaccustomed to in other countries,butsquirrel-
skins.
A b u H a m i d also
recorded
other
impressions. He
spoke
of
the 'bravery' of the Slavs, and said that their country
was vast, rich
in
honey,
wheat,
barley
and
large
apples of
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27
Early sources
unsurpassed
quality, which were
abundant
there andinexpen
sive .
In
one
Slav
town
inRussia,
whose exact
location ishard
to determine, he had an
interesting
meeting with a native of
Baghdad, A b d al-Karim, w h o
lived there.
Twenty
yearsafter A b u Hamid's visitto Russia, the Arab
scholar, al-Idrisi, a m e m b e r of a distinguished but declining
family,
w h o w a s
attached to the court ofRoger, the
N o r m a n
King
of Sicily, far
away
in theWest,
completed
a
geographical
work,
Nuzhat
al-Mushtak
Fihtirakal-Afak (TheJourney of
O n e w h o Loves Horizons).
While
working
on
this
project,
al-Idrisi,
like
his
distant
predecessor,
al-Dzhaykhani,
not
only
m a d e
use of scholarlyworksbut also obtained the assistance
of hispatron, Roger, in collecting a mass of oral information
about
different
countries
and
about trade in the
contemporary
world. T h e
countries of the
Slavs
also are
given
quite a lot of
prominencein his
work.
Al-Idrisilisted m a n y Slavtowns,and
mentioned
the trade routeswhichhek n e w
about.
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T h e
first
ourneys
to theEast
After
Christianity was adopted
in
Russia, pilgrimages
(khoz-
heniya) were a m o n g
the
firstkinds of journeys
m a d e by
Russians
to
theEast. Pilgrims' talesofConstantinople, Byzantium
and
Palestine
appearinRussian
chronicles
from
the twelfthcentury
onwards.
As
early as the eleventh and twelfth centuries,
the
Russianshad
a
special quarter (obol)
in
Constantinople, where
merchants
w h o
had arrived
from Russia usedto
live.
Colonies
of
Russian
m o n k ssprang up
in the
monasteries of Constantinople.
S o m e
ofthem transcribed
or
even
translated books
byGreek
authorsintotheirnative
tongue, and
also transcribedworksby
South Slav
authors,
andsentthem
toM o s c o w . It
was through
these
that
Russia
became
aware, long
before the
fall
of
Cons
tantinople,
of
the
Turks having appeared inAsia
Minor.
A
detailed
account of
the siege and capture
of Constantinople
b y theTurksin1453 wasleft
by one of the
Russian eye-wit
nessesofthiseventNestor Iskander.
After
the
Turks
captured Kaffa in the
Crimea,
in
1475,
the Ottoman
State became
a
close
neighbour of Muscovite
Russia. Desirous of
direct contacts
with the
Turks,
M o s c o w
sent
its
first
ambassador to
Istanbul
in1497, with
instructions
to
get an
agreementpermittingRussian merchants
to
engage
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29
T h e
firstourneysto the East
inunhampered tradein the Turkish
possessions.
Subsequently,
ambassadors were exchangedmore or less regularly between
Ottoman
Turkey
and Russia. T hearticlesproduced by
Tur
kish
craftsmen in the sixteenth to
eighteenth
centuries
weapons, armour, plates
and
dishes
in chased metal, harness
decorations, preciousfabrics and enamelswhich are conser
v ed
in the 'Oruzhejnaya
Palata Armoury
of the
M o s c o w
Kremlin, were all at one time or anotherbrought intoRussia
asgiftsfrom the Turkish Sultansto the Russian Tsars.
Sixteenth-century
Russia
learned
about
Turkey
and thelife
ofthe Turks through the worksof Ivan Peresvetov and M a x i m
the Greek,
which
are
written
in a lively
manner,
and
were
extremely popular at that time. In the
seventeenth century,
a verywell-known work in Russia and in Europewas a book,
The Court
of
the Turkish Czar,by the Polishwriter,Starovolsky,
writtenafterhislengthystayinTurkey;soonafterpublication,
it wastranslated intoRussian andother
European
languages.
In the eighteenth century, Vassilyi Grigorovich-Barsky tra
velled
in
Turkey
and the countriesof the
Near
East, as did
Konstantin
Bazili,
MikhailVronchenko and
Piotr
Chikhachev
in the
nineteenth
century.
From the
fifteenth
century onwards, there is evidence con
cerning
the exchange of ambassadors
between
Muscovite
Russia and Iran. For example, the
Iranian
historian,Abd
ar-Razzak, refers to the arrival of Russian ambassadors in
Herat in 1464. A n
embassy
from
Sultan
Hussein of Herat
arrived in M o s c o w in 1490 with an offer of friendship and
affection .
Exchanges of embassies became more
frequent
in the
six
teenth
century,
w h e n the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates
were united with Russia and Iran became her immediate
neighbour.
From
the
seventeenth century
wehave the travel notesof
the Russian merchant,
Kotov,
concerning
Iran
and the
lands
situated on the
route
to
that
country.
Kotov
supplied very
interestinggeographical,ethnographicalandeconomicmaterial
about the
lands
and peoples he had seen.
From ancient times India engrossed the imagination of the
Slavs. The fantasy-embroidered
story
of Alexander the Great's
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Thefirst
ourneys
to the East
3
journey to the East, to India, wasfamiliar to Russians and
Western Slavs, under thetitleof Aleksandrija.
M o r e reliable
information about
this
country was provided by the transla
tions
of the Christian Topographyof C o s m a s of Indikopol.
Mostof the informationabout
this
'land ofwonders', however,
reached the Slavs indirectly, mainly through Central Asia,
Transcaucasia and
Iran.
The
first
Russian to see India with
his o w n eyes wasAphanasiNikitin,a merchant of
Tver,
wh o
w a s
there
in 1466-72. He
described
his journey in a
book
en
titled Travels Beyond Three Seas.In
contrast
with m a n y Euro
pean travellers,Nikitin managed to mingle with the Indians
and
gain a good knowledge of the country and its customs.
In the seventeenth century, Russia tried to establish regular
commercial and
diplomatic relations
with
India,
but of
three embassies sent out, only the last one reached Kabul,
in 1676.
Shortly
after
the creationof the Afghan State
(1747),
Bog-
dan
Aslanov was
sent there
by Russia as an ambassador to
establish
diplomatic relations and also to ascertain the
possi
bilities
oftradewith
India
through Astrabad.
Aslanov's
journey
began
in January 1764,andlastedmore than a year. Aslanov's
notes
were
thefirstalmost
entirely
reliable information in
Russia about Afghanistan. F r o m the thirddecade of the nine
teenth
century onwards, Russian scholars
were
the first in
Europe to
m a k e
a thorough study of the historyof the
Afghan
people and of its language, Pushtu. In
1858-59
a
scientific
expedition led by Nicolai Khanykov investigated a number
of
architectural
monuments in Afghanistan. In 1878, the
first
Russian
mission
visited
thecapitalof Afghanistan, Kabul.
The Russians were the
first
of the Slav peoples to establish
permanent relationsalsowith the peoples ofCentralAsia and
Siberia. In the seventeenth century, Ivan Fedotov and the
Pazukhin brothers
collected
information about Bokhara and
Khiva
and by the beginning of the
eighteenth
century,
a
m a p
of
Central Asia had
been
compiled in Russia, and Russians
were already quite familiar with
those
regions. There is, in
Paris,
a m a p of
Central
Asia and the Caspian Sea,
corrected
by
Peter I in his ownhand w h e n he wasshown an extremely
inaccurate
m a p prepared in Europe.
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3
The
first
ourneys to the East
The Yermak
expedition, which
inaugurated the conquest
of
Siberia,
was organized in 1581,from the lands owned by
the Stroganov merchants
beyond
the Urals. The Cossacks and
the 'pioneers' opened up ne wterritories and built towns:
Tobolsk, T o m s k , Yeniseisk and Yakutsk. As
early
as 1640,
the Russians had
theirfirstm a p
of
Siberia.
At the end of the
seventeenth century, parties led by
Poyarkov
and
Khabarov
reached the shores of the Pacific Ocean. A Russian
Cossack,
Dezhnev,discovered the
strait
whichseparatesAsiafromNorth
America. In thefirsthalfof the eighteenthcentury,two
expe
ditions
were
led to
Kamchatka
by Vitus Bering. Russians
also
penetrated
into
Alaska (which belonged to Russia
until
1867,
w h e n it was
sold
to the UnitedStates).
In the seventeenth century, detachments of
Cossacks,
in
their conquest of Siberia, came into
contact
with n o m a d
Mongols. In a
desire
toestablishgood relationswith the M o n
gols
and,
acrosstheirterritory,
withChina,the Russian govern
ment exchanged
ambassadors with theMongolianruler,Altan-
K h a n .
It was only in theseventeenth centurythatregular contacts
betweenRussia andChina were established, w h e n the Cossack
Ivan
Petlin
accomplished a journey of incomparable
daring
to Peking. A n
official embassy, headed
by
Feodor
Baikov,was
later
sent to China with a retinue of one hundred. Feodor
Baikov's
credentialsproclaimed 'and W e , the Great Sovereign,
seekfirmfriendshipand
affection
with Y o u , the Chinese E m p e
ror . . . '. This
embassy
did not, however,gain audience with
the Chinese
Emperor.
In 1675, Nikolaj Spafary arrived in
Pekingat the
head
of alargeRussianembassy.
H e
wasreceived
in audience by the Chinese Emperor, and credentials were
exchanged. The Russian people learned m u c h about China
from thisambassador.
The Treaty of Nerchinsk in
1689opened
upwideprospects
for
Russo-Chineserelations.
Other
Slav peoples also
became
acquainted with China in
the seventeenth century.
Polish
missionaries, for example,
were a m o n g those whocarried Catholicism from Western
Europe
to
China.
O n e of
them,
Mikhail
B o i m ,
rendered
great
services to the authorities of the Ming
Dynasty
in the mid-
seventeenth century during
their
struggle with the Manchus
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T h efirst
ourneysto the East
32
in theKwang-siprovince, and his
n a m e
has passed
into
Chinese
history.
Emerging
on the shores of thePacificOcean andestablishing
themselves there, the Russians
became
acquainted also with
the Japanese. In a Cosmographywhich appeared in Russia
in 1670, it is stated that: 'Japanese people are very clever.
Japanese fishermen, shipwrecked on the shores of Kamchatka
in 1695 and 1719, captured the
interest
of the Russians with
tales
oftheir o w n country.
In 1803Japanesevesselswereagain shipwrecked on Russian
shores. The Russians helped the Japanese sailors, and sent
a n
embassy,headedbyNicolai
Rezanov,
backwiththem
w h e n
theyreturnedto
theirhomeland.
Later,the Japanese published
a diary which
they had kept during
their stay
in Russia. It
contained detaileddescriptionsof thenaturalresourcesof Sibe
ria and the customs of its inhabitants. A m o n g its
illustrations
is aninterestingIndian inkportraitof
Rezanov,
with explana
torydetailsof hiscostume.
Despite the mutual
interestbetween
Russians and Japanese,
regular
commercial
relationsbetween them were
slow
to deve
lop. A nexpedition by the merchant Grigory Shelekhov, at
the end of the eighteenth
century,
provedfruitless,as did even
thelaterexpeditionsof
Nicolai
Kruzenshtern (1805)and
Vassili
Mikhailovitch Golovnine(1811-13).Trade
between
Japan and
Russiabeganonly in the middle of thenineteenth
century.
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Trade and
trade
routes
The
trading linksbetween Slavcountries andtheEast, which
had been
so
animated during
theearly
Middle
Ages,
were
notdiscontinued subsequently. Even during thehard timesof
Tartar-Mongol
domination,
theancient trade route
along
the
Volga
didnot loseits
importance,
andin thefourteenth cen
tury,
Russian
vessels
m o v e d
d o w n the greatrivertothe trading
centresofthe
Volga
right to themouth ofthe
river.
In the
fourteenth and
fifteenth
centuries, Iranian,
Central
Asian
and
Armenian
merchants
travelled
upstream with
the
traditional
productsofEastern crafts.
Gradually,
as theyoung
Russian
State,
having
managedto
throwoff the
Tartar-Mongol
yoke,spread overthewideplains
of
Eastern
Europe, andas itspower and
international
prestige
grew, n e w andevermore favourable conditionsfortradewith
the Eastwere
established.
Absorbing
successively
within
its
frontiers
the
realms
of
Kazan, Astrakhan
and Siberia,
Russia carved
herself
a
route
towards thecountries of the
East. Astrakhan
became acentre
ofEastern trade,fromwhichRussian merchantstravelledalong
the Caspian
Sea coast,
through Derbent
and
B a k u ,
to
Trans
caucasia, Iran andeven India.
F r o m
thesecondhalfof the
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Trade
and trade routes
34
fifteenth
century onwards, and particularly in the sixteenth
century,
their
business
journeys took
them more
and
more
frequently
to the
Caucasus,
Transcaucasia,
Iran,
the Turkish
Empire and its possessions.
Merchants
from Poland and
B o h e
mia
reached the
countries
of the East
either
through the Tur
kish possessionsin theBalkanpeninsulaor through the Ukraine
and the Crimea. Even in the seventeenth
century,
the trade
routefrom Trebizond to the Crimea, the Danube regionsand
eastwards to
Iran
was very important. The
South
Slavs, wh o
were
subjects
of the
Ottoman Empire,
maintained
constant
trading contacts both with Turkey itselfand with the
Arab
peoples of the Mediterranean.
The riches of
India
were particularly attractive to Slav
merchants,
as well as to
traders
from
otherEuropeancountries.
Trading relationsbetween Russia and
India
were established
as
early
as the
late
sixteenth
century.
Their
growth
istestified
to by the
fact that, whereas
a
considerable
proportion of the
Indian
goods
which
reached Russia up to the mid-seventeenth
centurycamethrough Archangel,wherethey arrivedinBritish
and Dutch ships,subsequently, it was onlyfrom the south
that
they all enteredRussia.
It
must
be
emphasizedthat
it waspreciselyfromthesixteenth
century
onwards,
w h e n the
great
age of geographical discover
ies began, andEurope wasfascinated by news of the
incalcu
lable
richesof
India
and China,
that
the Slavs proved again
to be almost the
principallink
in expanding
commercial
and
cultural
relations between Western Europe and the East.
Although
Europe was by then already
familiar
with the sea
routeto
India
and although the
capture
ofByzantium by the
Turks
in 1453 had not yet led to the declineof the old
trade
route to the East through the Balkans and Asia Minor, the
possibility
offindingnew
routes
through Polish and Russian
lands tempted the merchant houses of Europe. Asearly as
1520,
Paolo Centurione, a
Genoese,
came
to M o s c o w with
orders tofindout a land
route
to China. A
special
company
was set up in England in the mid-sixteenth
century,
with the
aim ofestablishingtrade
routes
through Russia to China and
India.
In 1558,AnthonyJenkinson, an agent ofthiscompany,
secured the
protection
of the Russian Tsar and
travelled
along
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35
Tradeandtraderoutes
the
Volga-Caspian
route,firstoKhivaand
Bokhara,
andfinally
even to
Iran.
In
1 5 8 7 ,
permission wasalsogranted to Polish
and
Lithuanian
merchants
to
trade
with the
countries
of the
East
acrossRussianlands and toseekroutestoChina.
Besidessearching for a land route to China, the Europeans
did not
abandon
their attempts to discover a northern sea
route toChina.
O n e
of thefirstof theseprojects
w a s
launched
as
early
as the beginning of thesixteenthcentury by the M u s
coviteambassador
in R o m e ,Dimitri Gerasimov. In
1 5 5 3 ,
the
Englishman,
Chancellor,
tried
to
carry
out
thisproject
but got
only as far asArchangel, with the result that thefirsttrade
contacts
were
established
between
Russia and
England.
Tsar
Ivan the Terrible, w h o wasinterested in the East, is k n o w n
to
havepromised
alargerewardtoanyone
w h o
reachedChina
b y the northern sea route. It was only in the second half of
the seventeenth century that these efforts were discontinued,
w h e n
it was
found
that China could not be reached by sea,
'because
ofgreatice,frostand fogs'.
A
considerable part of the Slav
trade
with the East
w a s
in
the
hands
of merchants of Eastern origin. A m o n g these, a
prominent
rolew a s
played by
Armenian
traders.
They founded
numerouscoloniesbothin the East (in India,
Egypt
and Iran)
and
alsoin Europe, particularly in Poland, the
Ukraine,
the
Crimea and Moldavia. M a n y Armenian merchants lived in
M o s c o w andAstrakhan.In the seventeenth century, the A r m e
nians, w h o
had
established
a
number
of close
trading
contacts,
held
for a time what wasvirtuallya monopoly in supplying
Eastern
goodsto the
countries
ofEuropeviaRussiaandPoland.
BesidestheArmenians,an importantrole in seventeenth- and
eighteenth-centurytradeviaAstrakhan
w a s
played
b y
merchants
from India. S o m e of
them, natives
for the
most part
of the
Punjab andSind,settledinAstrakhan,whereaspecial'Indian
market'
was
built
in 1625.
F r o m
here, the 'Indian guests'
travelled
to
fairs
in
M o s c o w
and
Nizhny
Novgorod,
and in
1723
they
even
approached Peter I with a request to allow
them totrade alsoin Petersburg,Archangel'and thence to the
G e r m a n
Statesand throughSiberiatoChina'.
Merchants from Central Asia ('men of Bokhara'), played
an
importantpart in
trade
with that region.
They
regularly
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Tradeand
trade
routes
36
brought
their caravans
across
the
Kazakh
steppes and the
lower
Urals to the
Volga
region, with
bales
ofgoods from dif
ferent Eastern
countries,
including China, to which they had
discovered a road long before the Russian merchants. W h e n
Siberiawasunitedwith Russia,Tobolsk became an important
commercial centre,
where at the
outset
trade
across
theterri
toriesof the
Kazakh
nomads was
also
conducted mainly by
the m e n ofBokhara'. Later, from the end of the seventeenth
century, Russian merchants
also
began
totaketheir o w n cara
vans
to
China
viaTobolsk,Kyakhtaand Nerchinsk.
F r o m the
sixteenth
to the eighteenth centuries,the Crimea
played an important role in trading
relations
between the
Slavs and the East.
Polish,
Russian and Ukrainian merchants
traded with the Ottoman Empire and the Caucasus through
the
Crimean
Khanate and its trading
towns
and ports (for
example,Kaffa, the present-day Theodosia).Goodswereexpor
ted to the Eastfrom the
South
Slav
countries.
F r o m
ancient
times, the
main
items
which
the Slavs exported
to the Eastwere leather,fur andarticles
m a d e
of
these mate
rials. The
skilful
Slav craftsmen carefully fashioned various
sortsofleather, which were very highly esteemed all over the
Near and
Middle
East as far asIndia.Russian and Bulgarian
leathers,
particularly morocco
and
yuft ,
were
k n o w n
there
astelatin (from the Russian
telyatina)
and bulgar. Furs, abov
all
sable,
as well as
ermine,
beaver,
silver
fox, etc., were in
huge
demand.
The Slavs
also
brought
flax,
w a x ,
honey,
wool
lenfabrics,wooden
articles,
grain, h e m p and
amber. According
to written sources, linen clothes
from
Russia'
were
in great
demand
in the Indian
town
of Delhi asearlyas the fourteenth
century. Russian leathers, furs and fabrics were sold in the
markets ofSamarkand and Bokhara; Bulgarian leather
goods
and
attarofroseswerepopularcommoditiesin the Near East;
and
Polish
cloth
in the Crimea and the
Caucasus.
Firearms
were
exported to Eastern
countries
in the
sixteenth
and seven
teenth
centuries, whilst
hunting birdsfalcons and ger
falconswere
also
highly prized at the courts of Eastern
rulers.
The
nature
of Slav exports to the East changed noticeably
from
the beginning of the eighteenthcentury, andparticularly
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37
Trade
and trade routes
in the
nineteenth
century. With the development of
manufac
tured products, industrial goods
began
to play a dominant
role.
Russian,
Polish
and
Czech
manufacturers
furnished
the
markets
of the East with cheap factory-madetextiles(mainly
brightlycoloured cottons), metalarticles(instruments,utensils
and weapons), dyes, glass, candles, ropes, paraffin oil, paper,
etc. Paper wassent from Russia to the East in
particularly
large quantities: m a n y Iranian, Transcaucasian and Central
Asian manuscripts of the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries
arewrittenon paper m a d e in Russia.
The East supplied Europeand
particularly
the Slavcountries
with luxury articles,precious goods and
ornaments:
valuable
weapons
(damascene blades, Turkishsabresandpistols),rich,
fine fabrics
(Indian
'cashmere'
shawls, Persian, Central Asian
and
Chinesesilks),and precious stones.
H a n d - m a d e
rugs
occu
pied an important place in
this trade,
and
were
particularly
sought
after
in Poland. Spices and rare medicines
were also
imported
from
the countries of the East, mainly
from India.
Turkey,
Iranand Central Asia
traded
in thoroughbred horses,
harness, rice,coffee, fruits, nuts and tobacco,
China
in cheap
cottonfabrics
k n o w n
as kitaika , tea, paper,
porcelain,
articles
m a d e
of metal andbone, etc.
It is interesting thatas a
result
of m a n y
centuries
of
trade
relationsbetween the Slav peoples and the East,
quite
a few
words
of Eastern
origin
havefilteredintothe
trade
terminology
of the Slavs. For
example,
such expressions as altyn,coin
(Tartar),
pai,
share,
chek,
cheque (Persian),
mogarych,
tip
(Arabic), barysh,profit,
tamozhnya,
customs (Turkish), etc.,
were
widely
employed
by the Russians. Th eabacus,
which
is used tothisday aspartofshoporofficeequipmentin Russia
and Poland, was introduced by the Mongols. F r o m the
m e r
chants of the East the Russians also
borrowed
the caravan,
indispensable as a
means
of trading along the difficult and
lengthyhighwaysof Central
Asia
andChina.
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T h e
interaction of
cultures
Throughout history
cultural relations
betweenpeoples and the
interaction of cultures
have
taken
diffrent forms.
M o s t fre
quently, they have been the
result
of
direct
and immediate
contact. Not
infrequently,
however,
cultural
influences have
penetrated
also
from
neighbouring peoples,undergoingin passage
a lengthy processof stratificationo f
elementsfrom
a multitude of
cultures.
Cultural influences have by no m e a n s
necessarily
involveddirectborrowings
from alien
cultures;
creative
recep-
tivenessand modification
have
m u c h m o r e
oftenbeen
customary.
T h e influence exertedon one another by the culturesof the
East and the Slavs can betraced
literally
in all spheres of the
materialand
spiritualexistence
ofthesepeoples.
Agriculture
F r o m time immemorial the Slavs were tillers of the soil,
sowing millet, wheat, rye and other
cereals,
s o m e of which
wereintroduced to the Slav
ploughman
by the East.
Through the intermediary of
Byzantium
and the
Arabs,
rice
c a m e to Europe from the distant
countries
of the East;
it wask n o w n in Russia as 'Saracen
millet .
Russian
market-
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39
T h e interaction of cultures
gardens also
contain m a n y products of Eastern
origin;
water
melons, melons, pumpkinsandapricots.
Russians
have
always
been
very
interested
in 'overseas'
plants. As early as the seventeenth century, Tsar Aleksei
Mikhailovich had a special gardenlaid out in the villageof
Izmailov, nearM o s c o w ,whereplantsbrought
from
the East, e.g.
the mulberry,were grown on an experimental basis.Russian
ambassadors
always tried
to
bring
back new types of
plants
from the lands of the East. Thus, A d a m
Laksman
brought
seeds of
local
types ofriceandbarley
back
out
ofJapan
in
1793.
M o r e
than
once,
Russian
ambassadors
to
China
were
instructed
to procure 'tea-bushes'.
Rare animalslions, tigers, camels and elephantswere
also brought back to Slav countries from the East. It is
k n o w n
that,asearlyas the
tenth
century, camelswerebrought
intoPoland; Prince Meczko Isentone as agiftto the
G e r m a n
Emperor. Elephants
which
the
Shah
ofIran
sent
as a
gift
to
Ivan
theTerriblewerekept not farfromtheKremlinin M o s c o w .
At
the beginning of the
eighteenth
century
several
elephants
were sentas agift to PeterI, and in 1741fourteen
elephants
arrived all at once in Petersburg. A special 'elephant house'
was
built
for them, andtheirIndian keeperslivednearby.
Crafts
Articles
m a d e by Slav craftsmen were highly esteemed in
the East. It was no coincidence
that
experienced master
craftsmen of Slav
origin
could be met with at the courtsof
m a n y Eastern potentates. In the thirteenthcentury therewas
a
whole
colony of Russian master craftsmen in
Karakorum,
the Mongol capital. One ofthem, a skilled goldsmith named
K o s m a , built
a throne for
K h a n K u y u k ,
and fashioned the
great
seal
of
state
whose imprint is preserved on aletter
from
the K h a n to the R o m a n Pope. Slav craftsmen had a consider
able
influence
on the
development
of craftsmanship
a m o n g
Eastern peoples.
In
their
turn,Eastern articles
also
had an
influence
on the
work produced by the Slavs. In the early
Middle
Ages, the
great
demand
for Arab
jewellery a m o n g
the Slavs
wasalready
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T h e interactionofcultures
40
leading to
imitations.
Eastern designs
were
reproduced inearly
Russian
jewellery. Armourers
also
worked in the 'Eastern
style :
an
example
of
this
may be seen, for
instance,
in the
Russian-made bakhterets
(a sort of chain mail) preserved in
the
city
m u s e u m at Ryazan;it is decorated withsigns
imitative
ofArablettering.
The Turkshad agreatinfluenceon the
crafts
of the Southern
Slavs in thefifteenthcentury. Illuminators of manuscripts,
w h o were
given the
Arab-Turkish n a m e
of
Mudzhellid,were,
in particular, influenced by Eastern master craftsmen and by
Eastern
taste.
Ornamental
designs on the
pages
and bindings
of manuscripts
were
predominantly Eastern in motivation.
Book-binders m a d e
wide
use of the technique of leather
fili-
gree' (stamped
leather
binding),which
hadbeen
borrowed from
the East. T hesixteenth-centurySerbian gospels are
examples
ofthistype ofillumination.
T o
a certain extent the craftsmen of other Slav lands
also
imitatedEastern
articles.
Forexample,
fabrics, girdles,
brocades
and rugsimitatingPersian and Turkishmodels
were
produced
in the
sixteenth
and seventeenth
centuries
in Poland, the
Ukraine
and Byelorussia
(particularly
in the
towns
of
Brody,
Zamoste
and Slutsk).
Interest
in Eastern
goods
increased
particularly
from
the seventeenth century
onwards, w h e n
m a n y hand-made productsfabrics, weapons, rugs and orna
mentsbeganto bebroughtintotheSlavcountriesfromthe East.
Eastern craftsmen
also began
to
arrive. Armenians living
in
Poland
taught the Poles
h o w
to
m a k erugs.
In
Poland,
as
w e
have
already
said, there
hadalwaysbeena
greatdemand
for
rugs.
In
the
sixteenth
century so m a n y
were
imported by Polish mer
chants
that
exported rugs
were
k n o w n in Iranas 'Polish rugs'.
In Russia the influence of Eastern craftsmen was
felt
most
strongly
in the
development
of
weaving.
T h e
finest
Indian
fabrics
were
particularlyhighly
esteemed.
It is aninteresting
fact that
Russian
missions leaving for India
were
instructed
to bring Indian
weavers
to Russia. A velvethouse'was estab
lishedin the seventeenth century in M o s c o w for the production
ofsatin,velvet, damask
and other
fabrics.
T he art of
making
carpets
with a
flat
surface in the
Ukraine
was
also
brought in
from
the East.
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4i
T h e interactionof
cultures
Trade with
China
introduced the Slavs to Chinesehandi
crafts,and toporcelaininparticular.
After the establishment of
trade
relations
between
Russia
a n d
China,
porcelain became an important item in Russian
imports.
S o m e porcelainarticles
were
m a d e in
Chinaspecially
for the Russianmarket. For example, a
collection
of apothe
cary's
jars
ofstartlingwhiteness and decorated with the royal
e m b l e m w a smanufactured forPeterI, andporcelain
tiles
were
ordered for a stove at Peterhof Palace.
Certain Eastern handicraft articles
were
introduced to the
Slav countries through the intermediary of the
West.
For
example, the art ofpaper-making, invented at the beginning
of
our era in China,
penetrated
firstinto Central
Asia. F r o m
there
it w astaken over by the
Arabs
and introduced
into
Spain.
T h e manufacture of paper then
began
inother
Western
Euro
pean
countries also. T h efirstreference to a 'paper mill in
Russia
dates
from
1565 .
In
s o m e instances,
Slav master craftsmen
w h o
had become
familiar
with
certain
Eastern
goods
but did not k n o w the
techniques of
their
production, independently found out h o w
to produce them, andsometimes
even
improvedon theorigi
nals. For example, 'cashmere' shawls, which c o m m a n d e d
exceptionally
highpricesthroughout theworld,wereproduced
b y a technique k n o w n only in India.At the beginning of the
nineteenth century, Russian craftsmen succeeded in building
a loom
which
m a d e it possibletoproduce shawls of a
quality
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