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    Vikings in the East

    Essays on Contacts along the Road to Byzantium (800-1100)

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    Author(s)
    Androshchuk, Fedir
    Language
    English
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    Abstract
    It has been a tradition to write about ‘Vikings’ and ‘Varangians’ within the framework of national histories of Scandinavia. However, it is known that most of them were outsiders in the local societies of the respective countries. Vikings shaped their identity profiles beyond the social and political borders of their homelands, which means that ‘Viking Studies’ actually represent a transnational history. In order to overcome the tendency to marginalize these social categories, we need to see their place in a global historical context. The material culture of Scandinavia reveals some ‘oriental’ influences, which took place in the 9th and 10th centuries. These influences can be traced in weaponry, riding gear, coins, clothing, jewellery, ceramic, textile and copper vessels; however, no interpretative model has yet been proposed to explain them. No critical interpretation of these objects can be undertaken without tracing channels of communication, forms of contacts and social and cultural environments in which they were circulated. During the past decade, I have studied military aspects and cultural contacts in the early towns of Scandinavia and Rus´, and lately also contacts between Byzantium and the Viking world. One result of these studies is the identification of Byzantine influences on cloth style, city life, court ceremonies, town planning and defense, all contributing to a ‘Byzantine dimension’ of Scandinavian history. There are numerous examples of national histories of the North, while the concept of a transnational history still needs to be explored. The method of writing a transnational history remains to be defined, though we are aware that in dealing with a number of local histories we are required to find one story – a way of uniting different histories in a common plot. Topics that unite histories are, for example, movements of people and the spreading of ideas and technologies across national boundaries. Such common topics are quite popular in the writing of medieval history, but depending on political and/or cultural preferences they may be approached with different attitudes; sometimes they are simply denied. The debate about a Byzantine heritage in Scandinavia offers us a case in point. The question of whether or not Byzantine cultural influences may be discerned have been debated at length and are still far from being resolved. Some historians of religion and art deny any considerable impact due to a lack of plain evidence. By contrast, other scholars, especially archaeologists, try to show the importance of Byzantium in the spreading of Christianity and in the shaping of a local elite in Scandinavia. In this debate the role of Old Rus´ as an agent of cultural transfer between Byzantium and Northern Europe has indeed been noted. Northmen, who were known in the East as Rhos and Varangians, held a unique position in world history.
    URI
    https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/100168
    Keywords
    Byzantium, Rus, Vikings, middle ages, cultural contacts
    DOI
    10.33063/m6c0cy98
    ISBN
    9789155488154, 9789155488154
    Publisher
    Uppsala University Publications
    Publication date and place
    Uppsala, 2013
    Series
    Studia Byzantina Upsaliensia, 14
    Classification
    Byzantine Empire
    Ancient, classical and medieval texts
    European history: medieval period, middle ages
    Pages
    272
    Rights
    https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
    • Imported or submitted locally

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    License

    • If not noted otherwise all contents are available under Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

    Credits

    • logo EU
    • This project received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 683680, 810640, 871069 and 964352.

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