Russia

Despite these developments, and despite increasing sophistication in both their material life and their social organization, the proto-Russians could not yet be said to possess a civilization. Civilization was a preserve of warmer climes, where productivity was greater, population denser, and society more complex. So, in examining the development of what was to become Russian civilization and in enumerating the causes, the most prominent place must be accorded to global warming.

Some 900 years before the Christian era, average temperatures began to rise again. So did the rainfall (or snowfall). This trend, which culminated in what is known as the ‘little climatic optimum’, was to continue with only minor interruptions for over 2,000 years. It created the conditions in which the Roman Empire was to develop; it also laid the foundations of Europe’s medieval glory. Out of warmth grew riches. Some pale reflection of such prosperity was seen even in the less-favoured peripheries, and these provided the backdrop for developments among the east Slavs. In particular they prompted the development of more complex settlement patterns and of northward expansion into the forest zone.

Rather than simply counting village settlements consisting of anything from four households to twenty, archaeologists consider the development in this period of clusters of five to fifteen villages spaced between 12 and 18 miles apart to be significant. These clusters, they tell us, suggest some form of tribal organization. Furthermore, most of the larger villages provided a social focus of some kind, whether a smithy to supply precious iron tools or fittings, a shrine for an idol, or simply fortifications which could provide shelter to tribal members under attack. As time passed, these more important villages were more often sited at the confluence of rivers and were progressively better fortified, with earthworks and wooden palings. These protected settlements represent the birth of towns, which were essentially tribal headquarters - places from which a leader and his aides would organize defences, the collection of food surpluses and, if and when the volume of trade warranted it, the collection of duties too. ¹⁷

By the eighth century CE this primitive Russia had been ‘discovered’ by outsiders, and it was they who first put the Russians on the map. Trade had prompted the interest. This Russia was rich in honey, wax and tallow, for which there was growing demand. It was also a region where furs could be had cheaply — and, which were still more valuable, slaves. A quickening commercial tempo helps to explain coin hoards that have been found, and that many of these comprised Islamic silver coins dating from the seventh century testifies to the fact that Russia was already becoming a commercial staging post between the Orient and western Europe. They are found in their greatest concentrations in the regions of the upper reaches of the rivers Don and Dnieper and along the southern and western coasts of the Baltic, but there were also impressive concentrations in what is now central Russia. ¹⁸

At the same time, the pace of forest colonization from the south quickened, aided by the development around the year 800 of the hardy bread grain which was to become Russia’s staple, the foundation of the healthy Russian diet and of its remarkable cuisine - winter rye, a grain which has generated a great deal of Russian lore. ¹⁹ This fast spread of population to the north suggests that population was outrunning food production, and the first signs appear suggesting that cities and even states were in the process of formation.

The first evidence of social associations larger than the tribe points to tribal unions. The names of some of these have reached us thanks to the earliest Greek and Roman sources on eastern Europe. Among these were the Krivichie tribes of what is now west Russia; the Slovenie and the Viatichi to the north and east of them respectively; and the Derevlians (or ‘old settlers’). The Severiane and the Poliane lived in the territory we now know as Ukraine, the last-mentioned in the neighbourhood of what was to become its chief city, Kiev. These tribes all shared the same Slavonic language. Nevertheless, they did not constitute a state, even though centuries later their descendants were to speak differentiated, albeit similar, languages and populate three different nation states: Ukraine and Belarus, as well as Russia. Nor were the tribes to remain settled in the same areas. Archaeologists have traced significant movements. The Slovenie moved east and south in the late 8oos, while some northward movement by the southern tribes has been noted. ²⁰