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Title of the article: On the question of the initial stages of the formation of Old Russian statehood
Author(s): RIER Y. G.
Section: Art Theory and History
Year: 2016
Issue: № 2 (40)
Pages: 13-32
Index UDK: 94(47)01-026
Index BBK: 63.3(2)2
Abstract: The relevance of the topic is defined both by the role of state in history and, in particular, by the problem of the formation of the state in Russia. The difficulties of its study are caused by the limited number of written sources, which is partly overcome by using archaeological materials. Those materials confirm the emergence of a special military social layer in the Dnieper region beginning from the 8th–9th centuries. It was concentrated in special fortified residences — druzhina hillforts. This was the period of the formation of potestarian society with multitribal druzhina squads which gradually began to overtop local East Slavic population along river trade routes between the Baltic and the Black Sea. The formation and consolidation of the druzhina layer was speeded up by the presence of hostile external forces – the Khazar Khanate and the squads of Normans. Thereby East Slavic tribes formed complex chiefdoms with typical for a pre-state structure special ways to ensure vital needs of druzhina squads and their chieftains (Knyaz (Prince) in traditional designation). Tributes, seizures and plunder during military campaigns were common in all directions along the way «from the Vikings to the Greeks». The period of chiefdoms in Russia had finished by the late 10th – the mid-11th centuries. By this time, the isolation of local knyazes (princes) who led the tribes, remote from the Dnieper trade route, had been overcome. The beginning of the conversion of complex chiefdom into the early state is fixed in the 11th century by the appearance of written law — «Russkaya Pravda» («The Law of Russia»).
Keywords: formation of the state, hillforts, potestarian society, chiefdoms, druzhina layer
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