Introduction
In the previous article on "VO" we touched upon the topic of the actual military organization of the early Slavs within the clan system, as well as the issue of the absence of a military "aristocracy" at this stage of development. Now we turn to other military institutions: the prince and the squad during the 6th-8th centuries. Controversial issues of this issue will be considered in this article.
Military leader
Actually, the term "prince", according to the generally accepted view in science, was borrowed by the Proto-Slavs from the Germans, although the East German tribes (Goths) did not know this name. The idea that this term is of Slavic origin did not spread ("sticking out, outstanding").
Tribes or tribal unions were most often or primarily headed by "kings" -priests (leader, lord, pan, shpan), the subordination of which was based on the spiritual, sacred principle, and not under the influence of armed coercion. The leader of the Valinana tribe, described by the Arab Masudi, Majak, according to some researchers, was just such a sacred, not a military leader (Alekseev S. V.).
However, we know the first "king" of the Antes with the speaking name of God (Boz). Based on the etymology of this name, it can be assumed that the Antian ruler was primarily the high priest of this union of tribes. And here is what the author of the 12th century wrote about this. Helmold from Bosau about the Western Slavs:
“The king is in less respect with them than the priest [of the god Svyatovid. - VE] honored ".
No wonder in Polish, Slovak and Czech "prince" is a priest (knez, ksiąz).
Thus, the initial, main hypostasis of the head of the clan was the priestly function as the implementation of the connection between society and the gods.
Another, one might say, a natural activity was the judiciary, if within the framework of the genus, then this right has, so to speak, an organic character. It stems from the right of the heads of the clan to execute and have mercy. But with the increase in the number of clans, tribal judges appear, which could be all the same heads of the older clan. Their functions included solving problems between members of the same tribe, but of different clans.
Much later, during the emergence of the Polish state, we have information from the "Dagome Code", where the founder of the Polish state Mieszko - "judge". There are different opinions on this matter. It seems to us that the conclusions drawn from comparative material from the biblical history most clearly explain this institution: according to the Bible, a judge is a sovereign chosen by God, but not a "king." And the judges of the Old Testament are the elders-rulers.
Samuel, by the way, is both a high priest and a judge, but not a military leader (Gorsky K.).
That is, Mieszko was primarily the head of the tribal union of the Polyans (Poles), where the key function in the management was to judge and "row", by the way, the text lists four judges who govern the Polyans (Poles). The military function was still secondary, but in conditions when Poland was on the threshold of early state formation, it came to the fore: military power became public.
It is worth noting that Meshko's wife, daughter of the Markragrave Dietrich (965-985), is named in the source by the term “senator” (senatrix), and, if we proceed from the Roman political tradition, “senator” corresponds rather not to “judge”, but to an elder. (old man - senex), however, it was the elder of the clan who played the role of “judge”.
Thus, initially the head of the clan, and after him the tribal organization, had two functions that were most important for the clan society: a priest and a judge.
Under the conditions of an agricultural society, the most important natural function was to understand the agricultural cycle and "control" the elements, it could only be possessed by an "elderly" person who simply had more natural experience, such was the elder or the head of the clan. The military function was secondary at this stage and became important in the event of external aggression or migration of the clan.
However, often the "high" priests could play the role of a military leader, not because of the "established order", which at this stage did not exist, but because of their desire or capabilities, as J. J. Fraser wrote:
“Having noticed that the ancient kings were usually also priests, we are far from exhausting the religious side of their functions. In those days, divinity enveloped the king, was not an empty phrase, but an expression of firm faith … So, the king was often expected to influence the weather in the right direction, so that crops ripen, etc.”.
Ammianus Marcellinus observed the same situation among the Burgundian tribes (370):
"The kings have one common name" gendinos "and, according to the old custom, lose their power if there is a failure in the war under their command, or if their land suffers a crop failure."
These were originally the functions of the kings (rex) of Rome, the Scandinavian kings and the ancient Greek Basileus. Here is also the subsequent source of the sacralization of power.
Some Germanic tribes, as we know from sources, in particular, the Franks, were Goths in the 6th century, and possibly even earlier, the idea is that the king of the whole people should be a representative of one of the noble families (Merovingians, Amaly), but in practice this was not always the case, and the choice of the whole people often fell on the leaders of the valiant and warlike, but not related to the specified clans, for example, the Goths in Italy in the 6th century. kings were chosen not necessarily from the same Amal clan (Sannikov S. V.).
Among the Slavs in the period under review, "princes", or, more correctly, military leaders, were necessary only for the exercise of military functions, the transfer of public power to them did not take place. As Caesar wrote about a similar state of German society:
“When a community wages a defensive or offensive war, it chooses to lead it with a special power with the right to life and death. In times of peace, they do not have a common power for the entire tribe, but the elders of the regions and pagas make judgments among their own and settle their disputes."
Thus, we can say that the management of society was carried out at the level of the clan - by the elders. The unification of clans, and even tribes, could only take place on a sacred basis, and the "princes" were only military leaders, sometimes, perhaps, at the same time, heads of clans.
If the function of the head of the clan and the military leader coincided, then its bearer led the community, but if he was only a military leader, then outside of a military expedition or threat, such a leader did not have public power.
Druzhina
In this case, using the term "squad", we are not talking about a squad in general, but about a military-police institute. Considering its presence in all Slavic languages, it must be understood that not only the specified institution was understood by the squad. So, I think, a gang of young people of the same age and from the same tribe, undertaking a raid, an initiation campaign, etc., was also called a squad, but not every squad is important for us, but such as an institution for formalizing public professional power.
Such a squad is, firstly, a structure that denies the generic structure of society, it is based on the principle of not generic, but personal loyalty, and secondly, it stands in a non-communal organization, it is torn off from it socially and territorially (A. A.).
As for the period of the 6th-8th centuries, there is no evidence in the sources of the presence of squads. Despite this, a large number of experts believe that the Slavic tribes had a squad already in the VI (or even V) century.
The authors of the Soviet period proceeded from the aging of the emergence of class society among the Slavs, among the Eastern Slavs in particular. Therefore, it was pointed out that all state institutions, including squads, began to form during the movement of the Slavs to the south and west. Modern authors also modernize the situation, using, for example, terms such as the "power centers" of the early Slavs, ignoring the real picture of the development of tribal and pre-state structures in their progressive development.
With such conclusions, it is not entirely clear that the social institutions of the Slavs lagged behind their neighbors in the West, the "lag" explained only by the fact that the Slavs later embarked on the path of historical development and the emergence of social structures took place gradually.
I repeat, in the history of any ethnos there are a lot of factors that dramatically affect their development, the most important of which was war, but above all in the case of the Slavs, this is entering the path of historical development much later than neighbors and in conditions much more complicated than them.
In the conditions of a tribal system, when a prince or a leader acts only as the leader of a tribal militia during a raid or military danger, the squad cannot exist. Therefore, the historical sources of this period do not report about it. One thing is a "squad" for a joint one-time campaign, another thing is a structure consisting of professional, that is, soldiers living only by war or princely support, who are under one roof and are bound by oaths of loyalty to their leader.
It is noteworthy that in Caesar's notes on the Gallic war, the squad of the Germans, unlike the Gauls ("soluria"), cannot be discerned, but in Tacitus it already stands out clearly, and the difference between the life of the authors is only 100 years. So, the military tribal leader of the Cherusci Arminius, who crushed in the 9th century. Roman legions in the Teutonburg forest, was killed by his fellow tribesmen for encroaching on the title of rex, that is, while trying to be not only a military leader (kuning), but also to gain public power.
The squad is an integral tool for the formation of proto-state relations through violence, but in conditions when the Slavic society was unable to bear an additional material load and itself lived (survived) through the acquisition of a surplus product by war, the squad could not arise. The legendary Kiy (about the 6th century) wanted to found a new city on the Danube, being on a campaign with all his kind (male part), and not with a retinue. This just explains the situation when in the war of the Gepids and Lombards on the side of the Gepids in 547 (or 549), Ildiges, who lost the Lombard throne, fought with "many Sklavins" from Panonia. After the conclusion of an armistice, he fled to the Sklavens across the Danube, and subsequently set out on a campaign to help the Goths of Totila, at the head of 6 thousand Sklavins. In Italy, they defeated the detachments of the Roman commander Lazar, a little later Ildiges, not joining with the Goths, went to the Sklavins.
Needless to say, there could not have been such numbers of people who lived only in war, or vigilantes, but only the tribal militia could give such a number. Again comes the comparison with the campaign of the "clan" of Kiya, especially since "with the Goths he [Ildiges. - VE] did not merge, but crossed the Istra River and retired again to the Sklavins. " Obviously, with all the Sklavin militia that participated in the campaign and, probably, fulfilled their task of "enriching" in Italy, torn apart by strife, especially since such a large contingent in Italy is no longer mentioned. For comparison: during this period, in 533, on a campaign in Africa, the Byzantine commander Belisarius had a thousand geruls, Narses brought 2 thousand geruls with him to Italy, which significantly bled the gerul tribe. In 552, he also hired 5,000 Lombards for the war in Italy, who also returned to their home in Pannonia, etc.
Consider another situation that sheds light on the genus as a structural unit of Slavic society, including the military.
Justinian II in the 80s of the 7th century He actively fought against the Sclavinians in Europe, after which he organized the resettlement of the Slavic tribes (some by duress, others by agreement) to the territory of Asia Minor, to Bithynia, the Opsikios, to the most important border with the Arabs for the empire. Military settlements were established here, led by the Slavic "prince" Nebul. Only the "elite" army of the Slavs, without wives and children, numbered 30 thousand soldiers. The presence of such a force gave rise to the unbalanced Justinian II to break the peace with the Arabs and start hostilities. In 692, the Slavs defeated the army of the Arabs in Second Armenia, but they resorted to cunning and bribed the leader of the Slavs by sending him a quiver full of money, most of his army (20 thousand) fled to the Arabs, in response the mentally ill Justinian destroyed the remaining wives and children of the Slavs. The fleeing Slavs were settled by the Arabs in Antioch, created new families and made destructive raids and campaigns into Byzantium.
I am far from asserting that the "clan" is only the male part of it, but what happened in Asia Minor suggests that the "clan" could be created and anew both in Antioch and in a new city on the Danube, as in the case of Kiy, yes, by the way, and in the case of the "Russian clan" of the first century of Russian history.
The Miracles of St. Dmitry of Thessaloniki describes a large army, which "consisted entirely of selected and experienced warriors", "the chosen color of the entire Slavic people", "by strength and courage" surpassing those who had ever fought against them. Some modern researchers call this detachment of 5 thousand selected Slavic warriors a squad, with which it is difficult to agree (both with the size of the squad and with its existence as an institution at this time, according to the arguments given above).
The data that we have about the fighting of the Slavs in the 7th century can in no way be interpreted as the joint use of squads and militias: even Samo, who was elected the "king" of a large proto-state association directed against a serious and completely militarized Avar society, did not have a squad … He had 22 sons, but not one of them inherited the "royal" power, moreover, as one might assume, did not have a squad with which they could compete for power.
Both written and even more so archaeological sources of this period do not allow us to talk about a professional squad. And, as Ivanov S. A. wrote, by the way, a supporter of the emergence of the squad during this period:
"… but such an important element of the formation of the state as the squad is not directly mentioned anywhere."
Which is natural, since the Slavs were at the pre-state stage of development.
Attempts to interpret this structure on the basis of the presence of elements of rich weapons indicated in the sources of the names of leaders and mercenaries have no basis (Kazansky M. M.).
Which is quite obvious, since the Slavic society was not early state. Opinions about the presence of squads at this time are speculative and not based on anything.
It should be noted that, as in the beginning of the Viking era, in military terms, the militia differed little from the vigilante, in contrast to the popular modern idea of "super professional" vigilantes, since the life of a free howling was full of dangers and, in fact, looked like a constant whether preparation for war, or already war: hunting, agriculture in conditions of possible raids, etc.
With the emergence of a squad (not only a military, but also a "police" institute that collected tribute), the difference between a vigilante and a free commune member was that the vigilante only fought, spending time in idleness, and howl - both plowed and fought.
And the last thing we already paid attention to in the article on "VO" "Slavs on the Danube in the VI century." as a god of war or a warrior god, as it happened in the 10th century. in Russia, when Perun "passed" a certain evolution of development.
Thus, it can be stated that in the early period of Slavic history, within the framework of the social structure, one can observe the beginning of the separation of the military nobility, which is formed in the course of raids and campaigns, but there is no need to talk about the formation of princely power, especially the squads, since these are attributes of the community, which is at the pre-state or early state stage, which the Slavs did not have during this period. Of course, it is possible that the head of a tribe or clan could have a certain “court” as a prototype of the squad, but it is premature to talk about professional squads during this period.
We will consider other structures of the military organization of the early Slavs in the next article.
Sources and Literature:
Adam Bremen, Helmold of Bosau, Arnold Lubeck Slavic Chronicles. M., 2011.
Ammianus Marcellinus Roman history. Translation by Yu. A. Kulakovsky and A. I. Sonny. SPb., 2000.
Caesar Guy Julius Notes. Per. MM. Pokrovsky edited by A. V. Korolenkova. M., 2004.
Procopius of Caesarea. War with the Goths / Translated by S. P. Kondratyev. T. I. M., 1996.
Theophanes the Byzantine. Chronicle of the Byzantine Theophanes from Diocletian to the tsars Michael and his son Theophylact. Prisk Pannian. Legends of Prisk Peninsky. Ryazan. 2005.
The collection of the oldest written information about the Slavs. T. II. M., 1995.
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A. A. Gorskiy Old Russian squad (on the history of the genesis of class society and state in Russia). M., 1989.
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