Encyclopedia of Russian History

With the transformation of Soviet foreign policy under Mkhail Gorbachev, away from confrontation and toward meaningful cooperation with the West, Vietnam ceased to have much value to the Kremlin. Deciding to reduce its commitments to Hanoi, Moscow encouraged a Vietnamese withdrawal from Cambodia, as well as a political settlement under United Nations auspices.

The Russian Federation, founded in 1991, was focused on its own economic transformation, not with subsidizing impoverished Third World clients. Yet it had inherited an unpaid debt of $10 billion from Vietnam. Overcoming the massive debt that had resulted from the failed political-ideological crusades of the twentieth century assumed greater significance than any other goal for Russia in its relations with Vietnam at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Gaiduk, Ilya. (1996). The Soviet Union and the Vietnam War. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee. Gaiduk, Ilya. (2003). Confronting Vietnam. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Morris, Stephen J. (1999). Why Vietnam Invaded Cambodia: Political Culture and the Causes of War. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Quinn-Judge, Sophie. (2003). Ho Chi Minh: The Missing Years. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.

STEPHEN J. MORRIS

VIKINGS

From the 750s to the 1050s, the Vikings were warriors, pirates, and traders from Scandinavia who employed the most sophisticated naval technology of the time in Northern Europe to launch extensive raiding and trading expeditions stretching west to Canadian Labrador and east to the Caspian Sea.

Vikings (called Rus in the Arabic and Varangians in the Greek sources), primarily from Sweden and the Isle of Gotland, first entered European Russia in small groups in search of trade and tribute in the second half of the eighth century. By the ninth century, the Rus had established a complex commercial network stretching from the Baltic to the Islamic Caliphate. By the tenth century, the Rus extended this network southward to the Byzantine Empire via Kiev, continuing the eastern trade through intermediaries on the middle Volga in Volga Bulgaria. Also by the tenth century, the Vikings traveling through Russia had entered the service of the Byzantine Emperor (tenth through twelfth centuries) and helped found the first East Slavic kingdom, Kievan Rus.

The Russian Primary Chronicle relates that in 862 the Viking Rurik and his kin were invited by Slavic and Finnic tribes to come and rule over them, after which they developed a system of tribute that encompassed northwestern Russia, Kiev, and its neighboring tribes. The Chronicle’s account is substantiated by finds of Scandinavian-style artifacts (tortoise shell brooches, Thor’s hammer pendants, wooden idols, armaments), and in some cases graves, found at Staraya Ladoga, Ryurikovo Gorodishche, Syaskoe Gorodishche, Timerevo, and Gnezdovo. These sites were tribal and commercial centers and riverside waystations, typical of those found along trade routes used by the Rus, most notably that of the Volga Route to the Islamic Caliphate and the Route to the Greeks along the Dnieper.

In contrast to Viking activity in the West, which is characterized primarily by raiding and large-scale colonization, the Rus town network and subsequent tribal and political organization was designed for trade. Subject tribes living along river systems supplied the Rus with the furs, wax, honey, and slaves that they would further exchange for Islamic silver (especially dirhams), glass beads, silks, and spices in southern markets. The Rus expansion into Byzantine markets began in earnest in the early tenth century, with Rus attacks

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

1639

VILNIUS

on Constantinople in 907, 911, and 944, which resulted in trade agreements. By the end of the century, in 988-989, Vladimir I (ruled 980-1015), a quarter Viking through his father Svyatoslav, had married into the Byzantine royal family and converted to Byzantine Christianity, thereby laying the foundation for the Eastern Slavic relationship with the Greek world.

The tenth century marks the high point of Viking involvement in the East. Much of the Scandinavian-style jewelry found in European Russia and a majority of the Scandinavian-style graves date to the second and third quarters of the tenth century. Vladimir I and his son Yaroslav the Wise (ruled 1019-1054) enlisted Viking mercenary armies in internecine dynastic wars. In the eleventh century, however, the Viking foot soldier armies had become obsolete as the Rus princes were forced to adapt to another enemy in the south, the Turkic nomads who fought on horseback. The defeat of Yaroslav’s Viking mercenaries by a nomadic army at the Battle of Listven (1024) is indicative of this trend. See also: GNEZDOVO; KIEVAN RUS; NORMANIST CONTROVERSY; PRIMARY CHRONICLE; ROUTE TO GREEKS; VLADIMIR, ST.; YAROSLAV VLADIMIROVICH

BIBLIOGRAPHY