Rus' Khaganate - Dating

Dating

Extant primary sources make it plausible that the title of khagan was applied to the rulers of the Rus' during a rather short period, roughly between their embassy to Constantinople (838) and Basil I's letter (871). All Byzantine sources after Basil I refer to the Rus' rulers as archons (Greek for "ruler").

The dating of the Khaganate's existence has been the subject of debates among scholars and remains unclear. Omeljan Pritsak dates the foundation of the Khaganate to around 830–840. In the 1920s, Russian historian Pavel Smirnov suggested that the Rus' Khaganate emerged only briefly around 830 and was soon destroyed by the migration of the Magyar-Kabar tribal confederation towards the Carpathian Mountains. Whatever the accuracy of such estimates may be, there are no primary sources mentioning the Rus' or its khagans prior to the 830s.

Equally contentious has been discussion about the date of the khaganate's disintegration. The title of Khagan is not mentioned in the Rus'-Byzantine treaties (907, 911, 944), or in De Ceremoniis, a record of court ceremonials meticulously documenting the titles of foreign rulers, when it deals with Olga's reception at the court of Constantine VII in 945. Moreover, ibn Fadlan, in his detailed account of the Rus (922), designated their supreme ruler as malik ("king"). From this fact, Peter Golden concluded via an argumentum ex silentio that the khaganate collapsed at some point between 871 and 922. Zuckerman, meanwhile, argues that the absence of the title "khagan" from the first Russo-Byzantine Treaty proves that the khaganate had vanished by 911.