Rus' Khaganate - Relations With Neighbors

Relations With Neighbors

In 838, the Rus' Khaganate sent an embassy to the Byzantine Empire, which was recorded in the Annals of St. Bertin. The purpose of this embassy remains controversial among historians. Aleksey Shakhmatov argued that the embassy was meant to establish amity with Byzantium and to open up the way into Sweden through Western Europe. Constantine Zuckerman postulates that the Rus' ambassadors were to negotiate a peace treaty after their Paphlagonian expedition of the 830s. George Vernadsky connects their mission with the construction of the fortress of Sarkel in 833. That embassy was not recorded in Byzantine sources, and in 860 Patriarch Photius referred to the Rus as "unknown people".

According to Vernadsky, the Khazars and Greeks erected Sarkel near the portage between the Don River and Volga specifically to defend this strategic point from the Rus. Other scholars, however, believe that the fortress of Sarkel was constructed to defend against or monitor the activities of the Magyars and other steppe tribes, and not the Rus'. The Ukrainian historian Mykhailo Hrushevsky declared that the extant sources were unclear on this point. John Skylitzes claimed that Sarkel was a "staunch bulwark against the Pechenegs" but did not identify that as its original purpose.

In 860, the Rus besieged Constantinople, with a fleet of 200 ships. The Byzantine army and navy were far from the capital, leaving it vulnerable to the attack. The timing of the expedition suggests that the Rus were well-aware of the internal situation in the empire thanks to the commercial and other relations that continued after the embassy of 838. The Rus warriors devastated the suburbs of Constantinople before suddenly departing on August 4.

The early Rus' traded extensively with Khazaria. Ibn Khordadbeh wrote in the Book of Roads and Kingdoms that "they go via the Slavic River (the Don) to Khamlidj, a city of the Khazars, where the latter's ruler collects the tithe from them." Some modern commentators infer from Arab accounts that the Rus' Khaganate's political culture was profoundly influenced by its contacts with Khazaria. By the beginning of the Rurikid period in the first decades of the 10th century, however, relations between the Rus' and the Khazars soured.