G. V. Glazyrina (Hrsg): Drevnejšie gosudarstva Vostočnoj Evropy. 2011 god: Ustnaja tradicija v pis’mennom tekste [Die ältesten Staatsgebilde Osteuropas. 2011: Mündliche Tradition im geschriebenen Text]. Moskva: Russkij fond Sodejstvija Obrazovaniju i Nauke, 2013. 589 S. = ISBN: 978-5-91244-107-3

Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas: jgo.e-reviews 6 (2016), 4 Rezensionen online / Im Auftrag des Instituts für Ost- und Südosteuropastudien in Regensburg herausgegeben von Martin Schulze Wessel und Dietmar Neutatz

Verfasst von: Jonathan Shepard

G. V. Glazyrina (Hrsg): Drevnejšie gosudarstva Vostočnoj Evropy. 2011 god: Ustnaja tradicija v pis’mennom tekste [Die ältesten Staatsgebilde Osteuropas. 2011: Mündliche Tradition im geschriebenen Text]. Moskva: Russkij fond Sodejstvija Obrazovaniju i Nauke, 2013. 589 S. = ISBN: 978-5-91244-107-3.

This book addresses the problem of oral traditions discernible within written texts, but it contains four additional pieces. The latter include an authoritative edition by E. A. Mel’nikova of an Old Norse runic inscription found recently in Constantinople’s church of St Sophia, and seemingly datable to the later eleventh or twelfth century. Also noteworthy is a long review by G. V. Glazyrina of the published proceedings of a conference held in Bergen, Along the oral-written continuum. Types of texts, relations and their implications. Glazyrina endorses the concept of a ‘continuum’ between the oral and the written, allowing for interplay between these forms of communication, and noting that early medieval texts were apt to be composed for purposes of chanting or, at least, reading aloud. Her main criticism of the publication concerns its bias towards coverage of Scandinavian topics, begging the question whether its findings are applicable to Europe as a whole. Glazyrina has practised what she preaches, judging by the work now under review, of which she is principal editor. Of the 23 studies in its main section, some eight are to do with pre-Mongol Rus, while six deal mainly with Old Norse materials, four the world of classical antiquity and one Anglo-Saxon England. Their underlying theme is the problem posed to the historian by written texts whose sources may well have been oral and are thus, by their very nature, unavailable to us.

These problems are noted by the Editorial Team in their preface. If their insistence upon “oral historical tradition” as a fundamental source for “reconstructing the early history” of peoples like the Rus strikes rather a defensive note, they are responding to the strictures of the distinguished scholar S. M. Kashtanov. His contribution’s brevity is understandable in light of his answer to the question posed in its title, Does the medievalist have “oral sources”?: niet! In Kashtanov’s opinion, information conveyed by word of mouth is anyway susceptible to distortions, while the act of transcription “turns a spoken source into a written one” (p. 218). At best, one may learn from this something of conditions at the time of writing. Kashtanov’s scepticism is echoed by I. A. Kleiner, who stresses the mutability of oral versions and their unreliability on matters of historical fact. Kleiner nuances the role of the creator of the written text of a saga: neither author nor simply a scribe, he had to evaluate the contents of what he heard while also understanding its structure as a saga; not being bound by the requirements of continuous performance to reproduce exactly what he heard, he enjoyed a certain leeway. Equally, the commissioner of a text might follow the progress of composition and edit it, intervention amounting to authorship: one such was Snorri Sturluson, judging by his prologue to Heimskringla. Some other contributions show the limitations of accounts written by contemporaries who were reliant on oral informants for details of current events affecting them. Thus Sir Jerome Horsey was not far away at the time of the tsarevich Dmitri Ivanovich’s death in Uglich in May 1591; Empress Maria’s brother, Afanasii Nagoi, at once brought him the news “by moonshine”, seeking medicinal aid for Maria, herself now supposedly poisoned. His description of Maria’s symptoms is consistent with poisoning, but he neither set eyes on her nor had means of verifying whether Dmitri had been murdered (as he was told) or had accidentally stabbed himself in child-play, as a governmental enquiry commission found. In their study of the episode, L. V. Stoliarova and P. V. Belousov note that Horsey’s account begs further questions, while its belletristic qualities fail to inspire confidence. Clearly, the invocation of oral sources could mean different things in different cultures and historical contexts. In his ‘Chronicle of the Prussian Land’, Peter of Dusburg drew heavily on oral traditions to characterise members of the Teutonic Order. But his accounts are couched in Biblical or Crusading terms or evoke heroes from German epic poems, as V. I. Matuzova observes. Other writers proclaim the value of first-hand experience and oral informants, yet in practice draw largely on written authorities. N. E. Samokhvalova shows this to be the case with Strabo’s Geography.

It would, however, be rash to dismiss as worthless everything that historical writers relay from oral informants, unverifiable though their full factual accuracy may be. After all Herodotus, “the Father of History”, drew heavily on such information. Citing evidence about an altar of Heracles from a mid-sixth-century graffito found near Olbia, M. V. Skrzhinskaia argues strongly for Herodotus’ accuracy in reporting what he had heard from Greek informants during his stay in the town. He wrote down their local variant of the myth of the descent of the Scyths from Heracles. That a place-name might be transmitted between cultures and language-groups emerges from the study of T. N. Jackson and A. V. Podosinov. Ellipaltar, which Fagrskinna states that Harald Hardrada headed for upon his departure from Constantinople, may represent (albeit in garbled form) a Greco-Latin form of designation for the Sea of Azov, mediated orally through the Crimean Goths. More ambitiously, V. A. Arutiunova-Fidanian and A. S. Shchavelev review the various theories floated by N. I. Marr and subsequent scholars about possible links between the legend of Kuar and his brothers recounted in the Armenian History of Taron and that of Kiy’s foundation of Kiev in the Povest’ Vremennykh Let (henceforth: PVL). Noting the similarities of names and motifs in the two legends, they question whether this can be sheer coincidence. They suggest the influence upon the two stories of some “Iranian proto-variant” and, noting the Alans’ contacts with both Armenians and Slavs, they posit them as the cross-pollinators. Their theory is tenable, yet tenuous.

The question of whether sagas may register actual practices and historical facts bears directly upon early Rus history, and the nature of the sources of the PVL receives attention from several contributions. Rogneda’s response to Vladimir Sviatoslavich’s bid to marry her – “I don’t want to take off the shoes of a slave’s son!” – may not, according to A. F. Litvina and F. B. Uspensky, be wholly lacking in historical substance. They examine the statements of Old Norse laws about inheritance and collate them with the references in the sagas to inheritance rights, especially the assumption in Egil’s Saga that a slave-girl’s child could not inherit its father’s property. Composed by the tenth-century scald Egil himself, and transmitted with apparent accuracy, the saga underpins the position of Litvina and Uspensky that Rogneda’s reported rejection of Vladimir corresponds with contemporary Nordic custom-law. A comparable, albeit cautious, position about the PVL’s value as a historical source is taken by P. Lukin in one of the most substantive contributions to the volume. He argues that the PVL used the translated text of the Chronicle of George the Monk as the literary model for its account of Vladimir’s sponsorship of paganism through the erection of idols and staging of human sacrifices: the similarities in wording between them are too close to be coincidental. This finding does not lead Lukin to dismiss the notion of sacrifices to pagan gods altogether. He points out that three of the names of the idols – Khors, Dazhd’bog and Stribog – also feature in the Lay of Igor, whose authenticity as an independent source from pre-Mongol Rus now seems clear. The names were, according to Lukin, known to the PVL’s compilers from “oral tradition” (p. 343). Noting the emphasis Ilarion lays upon idols and human sacrifice in his Sermon on Law and Grace and also the fact that the Baptism of Rus was still within living memory at the time he delivered it, Lukin concludes that these themes are not mere exercises in rhetoric. Lukin’s thesis would have benefited from two further considerations. Firstly, Vladimir’s attempt to organise pagan practices and impose them on his heterogeneous subject-population was, on the PVL’s own evidence, innovatory, rendering scholarly quests for precedents among the East Slavs redundant. Secondly, quests for exact Scandinavian parallels are no less ill-advised, in light of recent demonstration of the diversity of rites and beliefs in the Nordic world by scholars such as Neil Price and Anders Andrén.

The drawbacks of a hypercritical approach towards the PVL receive further consideration from E. V. Pchelov, who examines the nature of Igor’s relationship with Rurik. Positing an oral tradition for Rurik’s paternity of Igor, he holds that the failure of Ilarion and James the Monk to mention Rurik is not a valid counterargument. Two of the volume’s pieces discuss the contribution made to the PVL by the senior princely counsellor, Ian Vyshatevich. Focusing on the PVL’s account s. a. 1071 of Ian’s encounter with “wizards” (volkhvy) on the Upper Volga, V. I. Petrukhin proposes texts akin to the Tolkovaia Paleia as ultimate sources for the answers reportedly given by the wizards to Ian’s questioning of their beliefs. Ian himself had a marked effect on the PVL’s contents and outlook, according to T. V. Gimon. He highlights Ian as one of the very few oral informants to be named by the chronicle and proposes that the stories he told were incorporated at the time of composition of the Primary Compilation, c.1093. Gimon’s lengthy piece is rich in insights and sound in scholarship. Occasionally his arguments seem strained as, for example, his insistence on identifying the Vyshata who accompanied Prince Rostislav to Tmutarakan in 1064 with the homonymous father of Ian, who had been a commander on the Rus expedition against Constantinople in 1043: this is implausible, given that Ian himself died in 1106 at the age of ninety, if we follow the PVL’s obituary notice. Nonetheless, Gimon shows how many passages in the PVL may derive from cliques – if not just one kin-group – of persons connected with the governorship of Novgorod, and he suggests that Ian might have recounted their oral traditions and genealogies to the PVL’s compilers. His findings reinforce the connection (first posited by D. S. Likhachev) of Ian with the PVL’s criticism of the ailing Vsevolod’s recourse to “the counsel of the young” rather than to wiser elders. Indeed, the worth to princes of counsel from experienced commanders and governors is a leitmotif of the PVL, and Ian could well have had a hand in bringing this theme to the fore. Gimon casts doubt on the very activity – presumed by most students of the PVL and its sources – of chronicle-writing in eleventh-century Novgorod. His scepticism tallies with the conclusions of N. F. Kotliar about chronicle-writing in Galich. Reviewing the data in the twelfth-century Kievan Chronicle (preserved in the Ipatevskaia Manuscript) concerning events in the Galich land, Kotliar points out the abundance of lively details but also the hostility towards such princes of Galich as Vladimirko Volodarevich. Rather than emanating from any Galich chronicle written under the prince’s aegis, this material is more likely to derive from eyewitnesses who briefed Kievan-based chroniclers by word of mouth.

One cannot accuse this volume’s contents of being over-weighted towards the history of Rus and the Nordic world. Thus I. G. Konovalova offers insights on the use by al-Idrisi of both oral informants and ancient authorities like Ptolemy, while T. M. Kalinina shows that the name Burdjan could be used in Arabic geographical works of ‘Proto-Bulgars’, Danubian Bulgars and the Burgundians. The price of such heterogeneity is a certain diffuseness, a lack of the close engagement with concepts such as the interplay between oral and written works that evokes Glazyrina’s praise in her fore-mentioned review of the Bergen conference publication. The volume contains, however, useful contributions across a spectrum of disciplines, and a number of them make major contributions to scholarship.

Jonathan Shepard, Oxford